The Zen Birdfeeder

FAQ - What Should I Do with My Concrete Birdbath in the Winter?

Q.  What should I do with my concrete birdbath in winter? 

A.  With proper care, a concrete birdbath will give you and your birds many years of enjoyment.  While concrete withstands sun, rain, and wind beautifully, freezing weather is its main enemy. Concrete is a porous material, and if water seeps into the pores and freezes, it expands, causing small cracks. 

You can take the following precautions to protect your concreate birdbath:

• Once a year, seal your bath with a non-toxic (water-based) concrete sealer. This will keep most water from seeping into the bath.
• In freezing weather, you have three options:

1) You can play it safe and bring your birdbath inside where it will be dry.

2) You can empty the birdbath and cover it so that water doesn't collect in the bowl and freeze. If the bath has absorbed water, it could still crack when temperatures are below freezing.

3) You can put a birdbath heater in the bath to keep the water from freezing. The heater must be powerful enough to keep the whole bath from freezing. If you lose power, however, the birdbath could crack!

Frankly, I'd bring the birdbath inside, especially if you'd be greatly disappointed if it cracked. Put a Wild Birds Unlimited Heated Birdbath in its place to provide an open source of water all winter long.

Provided by Wild Birds Unlimited - Bend OR.

Related articles

From Frozen Birdbath to Birdy Birdbath in 6 Minutes!

Time is Running Out for a New 2013 Yard Bird!

2013 is almost gone and I don't have a new yard bird yet this year!  With only days to go and migration done, the pressure is on to add #95 to my yard list.

 

Since the house was built and we moved in in July 1991, I've added at least one new bird species just about every year.  And since our Wild Birds Unlimited shop opened in 2003 (when I probably started paying even better attention), we've had at least one new species every year.

 

Admittedly, it gets harder each year, and calls upon my identification skills more.  There's been many a day, especially during spring or fall migration, that I thought I'd be able to add to my yard list if only one of my more knowledgeable birding friends was present.  I'd bet big bucks that I've had numerous warblers stop by that I just couldn't identify.

 

Birds don't always give us the best view!

 

My 2012 new yard birds were a Lincoln's Sparrow in May and believe it or not, a first ever Red-tailed Hawk (overhead) in June.  The year before, I added Field Sparrow and Palm Warbler.

 

Lincoln's Sparrow
New Yard Bird in 2012

So over the closing days of 2013, I'll need to keep a sharp eye out for that new bird.  I know the "potentials" are shrinking.  My best bet might be to watch overhead, where if I'm really lucky, I could see a hawk or waterfowl that hasn't passed over before.  Or I could dream really big and hope that one of this winter's irrupting Snowy Owls passes overhead.

 

Wish me luck!  And if I don't get that new bird in the next few days, I'll just turn the calendar page and shoot for 2 or more new species in 2014!!

Young Birds in my Yard - 2013

I'm running so far behind!! 

Here's a photo gallery of the young birds that visited my yard and birdfeeders during the 2013 breeding season.

Hairy Woodpecker young female with adult male
June 15

 

Black-capped Chickadee
June 19

 

Hairy Woodpecker male
June 21

 

Red-breasted Nuthatch young with male
June 21

 

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
July 29 

 

Brown-headed Cowbird
July 31
I'm glad I didn't see who raised it

 

Chipping Sparrow family
August 5

Black-capped Chickadee
Late brood:  August 12

 

Northern Cardinal female and young,
with young Dark-eyed Junco in foreground
September 9

 

Northern Cardinal young
September 10

 

Eastern Towhee
September 10

 

Mourning Dove
September 10

I couldn't find a picture of the young hummingbirds I had; I'll post one later if I find one!!

I had a great breeding season in my yard.  I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Book Review: Birds of the Midwest Adventure Quick Guide

This compact little guide to birds of the Midwest is part of a 3 guide series that also includes one for birds of prey and one for water birds.  It is specifically targeted as an alternative to fold-out bird guides, so it is sized at just 4" wide by 7" tall, and is waterproof and tear-proof.  I soaked my copy in water and let the water sit between the pages for a number of hours, and the guide did just fine.  I tried unsuccessfully to tear a page as well.   The spiral binding make the pages easy to turn, fold back or open flat, but the spiral isn't as convenient in a back jeans pocket as a folded guide would be.

Birds are arranged by color and located behind one of the seven color-coded tabs.  Stan Tekiela's state guides are set up in a similar manner and that feature - tabs that quickly bring you to all the birds of a similar color - is always well received when shown to customers in our Wild Birds Unlimited shop.  From experience, I know that color-coding is a main selling point to the backyard birder when buying their first field guide.

A Key on the first page explains that if the male and female of a bird species are different in color, they will each be shown in their appropriate color group.  The guide also identifies birds that visit backyard feeders with a bird feeder icon.

Within each color grouping, birds are shown in size order, small to large.  When you go to the color group in search of a bird, it is fairly easy to locate your bird since there are relatively few birds to look through, except for the brown birds.  If the mate is a different color, finding it, and then flipping back and forth between the male and female picture is fairly easy, since there are only 18 pages showing birds.

The birds are shown by a single photographic image, and each bird is described using 2-10 words to point out key identifying field marks.

On the bottom of each page is a size key, showing the bird in gray silhouette and listing the bird's length.  I found this key awkward, with my eyes jumping back and forth as I tried to match the silhouette either by position on the page or by shape.

There are 113 species in the guide, and the selection of birds shown is where I have concerns with this guide.  This guide identifies the Midwest as encompassing the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky.  I question the selection of a number of birds that are seen in only a very small portion of this range and are uncommon even then (like the Spotted Towhee, etc.) or those that are very irruptive and uncommon (like the Red Crossbill).  They pass on the Common Grackle in favor of the Great-tailed Grackle, even though you'd be more likely to see the common in most of the range.

I also miss having an index.

I think this guide is targeted to an adult with a casual interest or curiosity of birds in their area.  I feel it might leave them frustrated.  It includes some birds that are unlikely to be seen by the casual watcher, and doesn't provide enough help in terms of description.  A guide as basic as this should select birds on the most-likely-to-be-seen by the most likely users basis, in order to provide the greatest value.   With that in mind, in my shop at least, I would likely recommend guides from the Tekeila Birds of State series instead.

 

BIRDS OF THE MIDWEST ADVENTURE QUICK GUIDES
Stan Tekiela
Published by Adventure Publications
ISBN 978-1-59193-406-6
$8.95

DRAWING:
Comment on this post to have your name entered in a drawing to win my review copies of the Midwest Adventure Quick Guide Set:  Birds of the Midwest, Birds of Prey of the Midwest, and Water Birds of the Midwest.  Entries close December 31, 2013.  Winner will be notified by email.

WINNER of the drawing is Amy.  Congratulations!

In accordance with Federal Trade Commission 16 CFR Part 255, it is disclosed that the copy of the book read in order to produce this review was provided gratis to the reviewer by the publisher.

One Half Hour of One Hundred Grackles

I was coming off a Project FeederWatch count that would depress even the most optimistic bird feeding enthusiast:  just 6 species and 17 individual birds observed over the 2-day count period.  I even wrote a blog post about it, predicting the rest of the season to be disappointing in number and diversity of birds.

But there had been minor changes in the weather since my last count.  Temperatures had turned much colder, with daytime highs just around freezing and overnight lows nearing single digits.  Patchy snow covered the ground.  Just north of us, a winter storm was in the forecast.  Changes like these are perfect to help turn bird feeding activity up a notch. 

I began my count just minutes after the 7:02am sunrise, and my initial look outside included 5 Blue Jays, 3 Black-capped Chickadees, a Dark-eyed Junco, and an American Goldfinch.  I was optimistic - I had ten birds by 7:05, when I only had seventeen in 12 hours of counting the week before!

Then around 7:15, the noise began.  "Kaak, kaak, kaak, kaak!", coming from the trees all around the house.  High in the pines in the back, they looked like big black ornaments, sometimes 3 or 4 to a branch, every branch.  In the maple to the east, they dotted every leafless limb.  They crowded the plum tree right off the corner of the deck.  At first, the Blue Jays perched amongst them, until the sheer number of intruders drove off even the most aggressive jay.  Yea, Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" did come to mind.

There were well over a hundred of them, Common Grackles on the move.  Grackles begin forming communal roosts in late summer, shortly after nesting, and typically migrate from our area in October and November.  Migrating flocks in flight can look like long ribbons in the sky.

I don't know where they came from, perhaps a roost just north of us.  Grackles leave their roosts at first light and these descended to my yard within 15 minutes of sunrise.  Maybe the winter storm in the forecast got them on the move and the jay activity in my yard alerted them to an easy food source before they took flight.

They descended from the trees and became a black moving carpet over the entire yard.  They crowded the gravel driveway, likely taking in grit to aid in digestion.

My best count: 163 Common Grackles

 

I count 114 grackles on the driveway, walk and corner of yard

Interestingly, they didn't crowd the bird feeders, they just foraged on the ground.  They were spooky, flying off to nearby trees with any movement, but returning to forage as soon as it seemed safe to return.

They didn't stay long, just 30 minutes or so.  But that's all it took to put on an impressive display, sending me off to find out more about this common but often underappreciated bird.