notbob wrote:

>
> Even I had considered buying a bird feeder. When I saw the
> shark-like feeding frenzy at the feeders, it shocked me. None or the
> casual flitting of male and female birds amongst the branches,
> searching, feeding, mating, etc, in the idyllic pastoral scene I
> witnessed last Summer. At the feeders, it was beak-to-beak chaos, a
> vicious, brutal, dust raising, feather ripping, end-of-the-world
> display of bird violence I would have never imagined, had I not seen
> it.
>
> Sorry. This is not natural.
>
> nb
>



1. It's not mating time.

2. It's migration and the birds need all the nutrition they can get
right now.

We have two thistle feeders out all year; they're the only ones the
squirrels won't destroy. Some weeks we get hardly any birds, other
times they fight for position. Purple finches and an occasional
goldfinch. We have flickers on occasion poking in the lawn or tree
trunks. Some times of year the magpies come, then there are the
annoying crows, ravens, abd starlings.

nb, if you are near a wooded area (You're in/near South Park, aren't
you?) a hummingbird feeder should win you lots of visitors and as long
as you have sugar and water, you'll never run out of nectar.

gloria p