For years I struggled with feeding suet to the birds that flock to my feeders at Terradise. Back in the 1950s it was free for the asking at the country grocery in Caledonia. A kindly friend created a feeder in a small limb by carving holes in it to hold the suet. But it was soon plundered by saucy blue jays that grabbed whole mouthfuls. The next step was to render the suet and pack it more compactly into the limb.
After Howard died I found these chores too time-consuming for me to continue and by then suet was being sold instead of giving it away. Thinking there must be an easier way to supply the birds, I bought a can of lard and slathered it in several places on the gray dogwood tree outside my picture window in the kitchen. I soon noticed an increase in birds feeding on this ready source of fat.
I continued to feed during the summer months, mostly for my own enjoyment (I thought) until I saw chickadees, tufted titmice, white breasted nuthatches, blue jays, and red bellied and downy woodpeckers take a few bites, then fill their beaks with more lard and fly off to feed their nestlings. And soon the juveniles were showing up for their share directly.
When lard began going up in price and I tried vegetable shortening. The birds didn’t notice the change and continued to strip the tree of its daily portion.However, all the literature I read mentions only suet as a source of fat for birds. Surely there must be others out there that have found this easy way to supply fat a minimal cost to the birds they feed?
Trella H. Romine
Terradise
Caledonia, Ohio
