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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

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  1. E

    Bird with powder blue belly brown wings and head in CNY feeder today 04_24_24.

    I will try and get a picture if it returns. Quite certain about the powder blue color. I stared at it for a good three minutes, and from several angles, going to a second window. My house is grey with white trim. Nothing around to reflect a blue color. The bird was on a perch on the side of...
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    Bird with powder blue belly brown wings and head in CNY feeder today 04_24_24.

    But an immature male Indigo Bunting and Blue Grosbeak have blue heads and I believe they are both considerably smaller than the cardinal sized, plump bird I saw.
  3. E

    Bird with powder blue belly brown wings and head in CNY feeder today 04_24_24.

    I live in Homer, NY just south of Syracuse. The picture I have posted was from Wikipedia and is a Blue Wax Bill, which you referred to as a Cordon-Blue. I realize this is probably impossible. But I can't find any other species in North America that resemble what I saw this morning.
  4. E

    Bird with powder blue belly brown wings and head in CNY feeder today 04_24_24.

    I'm a very inexperienced bird watcher. Today I saw something at my feeder that really caught my attention. My security camera isn't working, and I feared that if I left the window to get my cellphone it would be gone before I retrieved it. So unfortunately, I have no pictures. The bird was...
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    Has anyone else experienced eastern gray squirrels that are shy, timid, or otherwise not interested in bird food?

    The squirrels in my upstate NY yard don't go near the black oil sunflower seeds either. They go for peanuts and nuts.
  6. E

    Polite bluejays mad at me because I yelled at the squirrels.

    I really like the bluejays in the neighborhood. They stand patiently on my deck, waiting for the smaller birds to vacate the feeder, before going to it. I wanted to reward that behavior, so I bought a 20 lb. bag of unshelled, unsalted peanuts and started laying them on the deck railing...
  7. E

    How can I keep feeder visitors safe from hawks and owls?

    Thanks for the suggestion. They are nice but I live in zone 5A, and my google search indicated they won't grow well here. I had a suggestion from a local nursery a couple years ago when I was just looking to block the view of a neighbor's house. I don't know if the plant was an evergreen or...
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    How can I keep feeder visitors safe from hawks and owls?

    My home has very few vantage points to view feeders, and I have vision problems that can't be corrected. So I have a shepherds hook mounted on a bracket from my back deck, about 7 feet from the kitchen window. I either hang a suet cage from it, or a hopper feeder. If it weren't so close I'd...
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    How do I get the birds to find a newly placed feeder

    Thank you all for the advice. Since I haven't seen any birds whatsoever at the tube feeder since I hung it, I decided to take it down. Otherwise I might be tempted to leave the Nyjer in it too long and it will spoil. Regarding my hopper feeder in the back yard... I haven't seen any...
  10. E

    How do I get the birds to find a newly placed feeder

    I don't know much about birds and I'm going to ask a dumb question here. I live in central NY state. Gets down into the teens here during the winter. What birds are still resident that will be able to access nyjer seed from one of these tube feeders with the tiny port holes? My tube feeder...
  11. E

    How do I get the birds to find a newly placed feeder

    I don't set the suet on a table. The suet cages (one on either end of the bird feeder) offer no perches to the bigger birds. So I find that the bluejays and woodpeckers (which are bigger birds) have to contort their bodies to hold onto the cage and feed. I like the bluejays. The bluejays...
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    How do I get the birds to find a newly placed feeder

    I have poor eyesight and only a couple windows which can be used to observe a bird feeder. And as selfish as it may seem, I don't want to feed my bird friends unless I can enjoy seeing them. Three days ago I suspended a tube feeder with small feeding ports from a hook at the ceiling of the...
  13. E

    Hello to all. Thank you in advance for any help you offer.

    Well over a month has passed, and the birds, excepting a few chickadees and some plump little grey birds zoom away the instant I enter my kitchen, whether I turn on the light or not. The cardinal only comes at dusk when it is very hard to see him. And if he sees the slightest motion in the...
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    New feeder care and treatment

    Thank you. I didn't have any problem finding it. I looked up oil based polyurethane finish. It is food safe when fully cured. In fact, it is used on cutting boards. But I will only put the finish on the perches and on the roof of the feeder - not on any surfaces that hold the seed they...
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    New feeder care and treatment

    Followup question. Hope it is not too "off topic". The old hopper feeder I am using is unfinished redwood. A bit concerned that it will get damaged by the rain and sun. Would an application of polyurethane to the roof, body, and perches drive away the birds? (I don't know if they would...
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    Hello to all. Thank you in advance for any help you offer.

    Thank you all. Do I try to gradually introduce them to my presence by being quiet? Or should I just go about my normal business in the kitchen. They are off like a rocket when they see me.
  17. E

    Hello to all. Thank you in advance for any help you offer.

    Hi!. I'm looking for some advice, and perhaps some new friends. I inherited my mother's house in 2018 - perhaps because I took care of her for years (in the same house). First place I've ever owned. My mother didn't believe in feeding birds. She stopped doing it decades ago after she read...
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