Although Devil Track Lake hasn’t completely frozen, December is pretty normal on the South Shore Drive. The recent snowfall covered the dreary winter brown with a white blanket of fluffy snow. The musical tinkle of lake water turning to ice fills the air.
All’s right with the world. Except.
“I haven’t seen a single Canadian jay at my bird feeders,” I complained to Dick for the umpteenth time. “They were here by this time last year, and I don’t see pine grosbeaks or pine siskins.”
“Don’t worry. They’ll come.” He’s a little more relaxed about the birds than I am.
“And ravens. I even had two ravens last year.”
He pointed out that I’d already managed to entice a large chickadee flock to our yard, and that nuthatches abounded and, oh yes, at least a dozen or so squabbling blue jays gobbled up the bread chunks I placed on the deck railing in record time. Why was I complaining?
Dick also enjoys the birds. He helps spread sunflower seeds and hangs up the suet feeder in the fall. He supplied me with a sturdy stepladder, so when I change the suet ball, I won’t accidentallly catapult over the deck rail. But he’s easier going than I about our feathered friends. Still, it bugged me that I didn’t have all the bird varieties of last year, so I decided to quietly do something about it.
First, I visited the hardware store where I bought a bag of Premium Wild Bird Food Designed to Attract the Birds You Love, a fancier seed variety than I was currently using. I mixed it in with sunflower seeds and scattered extra batches of it in my yard, making sure the new delicacy was easily available. I thought that might do it. But after several days, my efforts were unrewarded. The same old birds showed up, and the two resident red squirrels got fatter.
I doubled my efforts. One of my favorite bird feeding techniques is to leave chunks of bread on the deck railing. I increased the two daily feedings to four. Nothing. Same old birds.
I was left with only one option, something I’d never tried – a homemade suet concoction sent to me by a reader. It involves lard, oatmeal, corn meal and peanut butter to name a few ingredients, and sounds good enough for human consumption. This recipe and its accompanying letter have been sitting in my “to do” pile for quite some time. I’ve always meant to mix up a batch but never got around to it.
That’s my next step. Unfortunately, this column’s deadline came too fast. As this paper goes to press, I haven’t yet tried the new recipe but promise to give an update in my next column.
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