They love safflower seeds and thistle (nyger). At first we had so many grackles, large, very aggressive black birds. I didn't like them! Grackels don't like safflower seeds, so we changed from a sunflower seed to the safflower. The last few days there have been as many as nine little finches munching away at any one time! No more grackels! The finches have voracious appetites and are eating us out of house and home! We think these are new springtime babies because they are all the same size and don't have color (males have red on their heads and throats), which they get after first year. Of course some could be females too. They are getting very brave and come to the brick ledge under the window! So fun to watch!
Our resident rabbit seems to have had bunnies. This little guy was eating all the safflower seeds the birds dropped to the ground. Good boy - or girl! I was just about to go and rake it all up!
And then, lo and behold! I found a nest in the purple smoke bush right outside my window! It was high enough that I had to stand on tip toes to look in. Three little eggs! As soon as I stepped away a big fat robin flew to the nest to protect them all. Has been there ever since, even in a blustery storm!
"Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?"
Matthew 6:25-27
Yes, we switched to safflower too! But I do have one feeder that the grackles cannot get into as it as a "screen" that they can't fit through. Love the bunnies - we have them too. The killdeer are protecting their young now at our home.
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