How to Attract Birds

Why is it that books like "How to Attract Birds" recommend putting up a separate squirrel feeder to distract those fuzzy-tailed rodents from gobbling up the contents of your bird feeders? All this does is attract more squirrels to your yard, who proceed to devour both the contents of the squirrel feeder and the bird feeders. Or in the case of our old house in Detroit, the squirrel feeder on the fence attracted the rats from our neighbor's woodpile, and the squirrels very wisely stuck to the bird feeders. Any self-respecting book on attracting birds also has to include information on how to discourage unwanted seed hustlers such as squirrels, chipmunks, starlings, and (in the case of our new home), raccoons, and bears. Authors John Dennis and Michael McKinley do their best in Ortho's "How to Attract Birds," but they tend to emphasize the positive (attracting favorite birds) rather than the negative (discouraging unwanted visitors). This 96-page book is divided up into sections on "Birds in the Wild," "Planting for Birds," "Providing Food," "Providing Water," "Providing Housing," and "Attracting Your Favorite Birds." The text is an easy read, and there are lots of color photos and diagrams. Be sure to read the inset on page 53, "Protecting Your Guests." There are types of feed that shouldn't be used in the summer, e.g. peanuts and coconut because they can't be digested by nestlings of certain species. You also might want to avoid certain ornamental plants with berries that ferment, intoxicating their feathered diners and causing them to fly "into houses or into oncoming traffic." Overall "How to Attract Birds" is a very useful book, even though it doesn't satisfy my quest to build an effective squirrel-proof feeder.

The editorial review basically says it all. I'm using the book quite a bit -- I'm trying to attract birds that will eat insect pests. Few other sources have such detailed information about feeding habits, and the information on houses is quite adequate, although you can find birdhouse designs which are much more visually appealing (to humans!) in other books. The one thing I really wish they had done is to put the pests in the index; finding what pests birds like particular to eat requires tedious entry-by-entry searching.