The Birders Report

Check out my Tree Swallow post over at 10000 Birds!  It’s my latest West Coast Beat Writer’s post.

Evening Grosbeak (Coccothraustes vespertinus) photos by Larry Jordan

Last weekend I spotted a single male Evening Grosbeak (Coccothraustes vespertinus) in my yard.  This weekend, there were three males and a female to ponder.

Bringing the dog up to the yard through the pasture gate, he always runs toward the water feature and scares all the birds into flight, but this day, at least four medium sized birds stayed right where they were perched, in the top branches of the scrub oak by the pond.  I now had four visiting grosbeaks!

I went inside to get my camera, hoping they would hang around for awhile.  They did.  Click on photos for full sized images.

The sun came out from behind the clouds long enough for me to get some shots of one of the males stretching

showing his always conspicuous white wing patches

Then, all of a sudden, one of the males made his way down to the waterfall to drink as I hurriedly repositioned my digiscoping setup to get one decent photo of him close up.

Luckily for me, the female Evening Grosbeak followed him down

Her beauty is a bit more subtle than the male, like the salmon highlights on her throat

Then they all made it over to my new hopper feeder and began to chow down on black oil sunflower seed.

Go down and leave a comment on my previous post to have a chance at winning a Wild Birds Unlimited product of your choice, up to a $50 value!

Then, head on over to World Bird Wednesday to see some great bird photos, and while you’re there, add your own!

Wild Birds Unlimited EcoTough Bird Feeder photos by Larry Jordan

Wild Birds Unlimited asked me to review one of their products and even gave me my choice of product to evaluate!  Since I am big into feeding the birds that choose to come visit me (I have more than a dozen bird feeders) around my home, I chose to review their EcoTough Classic Too Bird Feeder.  At the end of this review is a chance for you to win a product worth up to $50 from Wild Birds Unlimited so don’t miss that.

The “EcoTough” series of products are environmentally friendly, high quality products that are made from recycled plastic milk jugs, preventing used milk jugs from making their way into our landfills, so they are good for the environment as well as the birds.

I must say I was immediately impressed with the quality of construction and the excellent design of this classic hopper style bird feeder.  They are solidly built with quality screws and hinges and come with a lifetime guarantee to never crack, split or rot.  The sticker attached to this feeder even states “squirrel damage that affects the function of the feeder is covered by the guarantee!  That’s hard to beat!

Dark-eyed Junco at EcoTough Too Bird Feeder
(click on photos for full sized images)

I have several bird feeders including tube feeders, caged feeders, thistle feeders, suet feeders, a woodpecker feeder, a weatherproof feeder, a nut feeder, a tray feeder, and several hummingbird feeders, but this is my first hopper style feeder.  I have waited several weeks before writing this review so that I could fairly evaluate this product.

Not only is this feeder constructed from top quality materials, the design is well thought out too.  The hinged roof makes it easy to fill from the top when you see no more food through the plexiglas sides.  The bird food flows out onto a narrow porch with solid wall perches on each side making it easy for the birds to access the feed and perch comfortably.

I noticed that most of the songbirds using the feeder actually turned on the perches and faced outwards while feeding, making it easier for the bird watcher to view them.  The curved end design also allows the bird watcher a much better view of the birds as you can see from the photos on this post.

The area in front of the perches are open on the ends allowing seed and shells to drop to the ground where ground feeding birds can clean them up, making this an efficient self-cleaning feeder.

My yard birds are many and each species seems to prefer certain types of feeders.  They have been feeding from tube feeders for years and so it took them a little while to investigate the hopper feeder but once they found it, they went crazy, as you can see from the video at the end of the post.

I have found over the years that it is most practical to feed only quality bird seed to my backyard birds.  I feed only sunflower seed, nyjer (thistle) seed, raw nuts, suet,  and a special woodpecker, nuthatch and chickadee mix.  Wild Birds Unlimited has several seed choices to choose from including wild bird seed, suet and specialty food.

I put black oil sunflower seed in this feeder and got lots of takers like the Dark-eyed Juncos above and the Oak Titmice that breed in my nest boxes.

To my utter delight, I went out on the porch a few days ago and found an Evening Grosbeak feeding at the EcoTough Too Classic Bird Feeder along with a Purple Finch.

I believe this is the first Evening Grosbeak seen in my yard.  They are not common to my area and are usually only seen occasionally at feeders in the winter.  They certainly gave the EcoTough Bird Feeder a good review!

I also shot some video of the action at the Wild Birds Unlimited EcoTough Classic Too Bird Feeder for your enjoyment.  I went out later, after filming this video to find all four of the Evening Grosbeaks feeding at the feeder.

I edited the video to cut it down to a minute from its original four minutes, but you can see the Lesser Goldfinches, Oak Titmouse, House Finches, Purple Finches and Dark-eyed Junco enjoying the bounty.

Other products from Wild Birds Unlimited:

• Black Oil Sunflower Seed
• Thistle Seed
• Suet Feeders
• Wild Bird Feeders
• Window Bird Feeders
• Birdacious Products

You can also check out the Wild Birds Unlimited Newsletter and become a fan of their Facebook page.

Now you have a chance to win any product from Wild Birds Unlimited (WBU) up to a $50 value simply for leaving a comment on this post about what WBU product you like, or think you would like to try.  This giveaway will be open until March 27th when I will put all names into a hat and choose a winner!  Good Luck!