Wild Bird Feeders and Houses - So Many Options!

Today I took a trip into town to visit a home and garden center that had been recommended to me by several friends. The place is called Logan Trading Company, and it bills itself as your "One Stop Garden Shop".  Built in an old train depot in the center of Raleigh, NC, it's a wonderful garden center with great plants, pots, tools, garden accessories, and an absolutely wonderful hot-grill cafe.

In a later post I'll show you around the entire place, but today I'd like to take you through their "Wild Bird" section.   This collection of feeders and birdhouses had more types of offerings than I'd seen in one place in quite some time.  It certainly beat out the local big box home improvement center by a long shot!



I'm just going to start showing you all the many different kinds of feeders I found there.   To start, how about this wall of tube feeders - wow!  Lots of great low-cost options here, and a nice selection of Nyjer (thistle) tube feeders as well as regular seed feeders.

There were some more expensive squirrel deterrent tube feeders available...

... some wire cage tubes for holding black oil sunflowers or safflower or other larger seeds...

... and this display of squirrel-deterrent feeders had a very amusing video, showing the antics of squirrels trying in vain to climb on the feeders.  The price on these were about ten times that of the first wall, though.

There were several types of platform feeders available.  The labels on these noted that they're great for more timid birds, as well as larger birds who have trouble fitting on tube feeders.

This feeder was made out of bamboo, and had three tall sections separated from each other in a hexagon shape, so you could fill with three different types of feed.

Moving on, there were lots of hummingbird feeders and accessories, including nectar mix, nesting materials, and hanging options.

And a cute little hummingbird feeder designed as a plant stake

Here's a feeder I'd never seen before - a log suet feeder.  This is designed to encourage woodpeckers and a few other species who hunt for protein inside of wood.  You can purchase plugs of suet specifically designed to be pushed into the holes in the log.  The employee I spoke with noted that you have to use a squirrel baffle on this to prevent the squirrels from getting all the good stuff!

There are lots of other suet options, including suet balls,

Suet towers

Suet stackers

Suet pellets

and an extra fancy suet cake holder to assist larger birds with a place to perch.

Here's a grape jelly feeder, designed to attract Baltimore Orioles and other fruit-loving birds.  I've read recently that orioles specifically like Welch's Grape Jelly, and you can put it out in an orange peel cup to attract them.  Orioles are not prevalent in the Raleigh area, so I don't think I'll tempt the stinging insects with a big ol' cup of sweetness like that!

This feeder is designed to hold dried mealworms for Eastern Bluebirds, and it's on a stake that can be pushed into the ground.

There's a similar mealworm feeder which just hangs up with no roof on it.   I think you could make something similar pretty easily using a recycled frozen meal tray, or maybe a plastic pot saucer or something.

Here's one that's kind of silly, but I guess it might suit someone's taste.  It's a two-jar feeder, where you can put two different kinds of food out to attract specific birds, here shown to attract orioles and bluebirds.

There were some sweet options for offering nesting materials, including this wreath made of out feathers, moss, and alpaca wool

and this nesting material holder that could later be used for a feeder

There were several types of birdhouses, each geared to attract a specific type of bird.

These cute birdhouses caught my eye.

In addition to all of these, of course they had many kinds of birdseed mixtures in small, medium and large bags, several options for secure storage of your seed, and lots of hangers, shepherds hooks, and other necessary accessories.  I spent almost a half hour in this section of the store, checking out all the offerings.  Many I'd never seen before, and I was really tempted to get some cute new feeder options.

I ended up purchasing a baffle to try to keep the squirrels off of my feeder pole.  Sorry, squirrels.  You eat too much of my seed!   But to make up for it I also bought a squirrel corn feeder to put in the back part of the yard near the woods.  It spins and makes them work hard to get their treat!  I'm looking forward to some squirrel acrobatic entertainment this summer.  I also got some hummingbird nectar mix and a new hummingbird feeder to replace one that had cracked.

I've really come to enjoy all the birds that we've been able to attract to our back yard this spring, and so it's likely I'll be back to Logan Trading Center to pick up more feeding options as time goes by.

What about you?  What kinds of feeders do you have, and which would you like to try?  Do you have a favorite?   Leave a comment to let me know how your bird adventures are going this spring!

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Linking to:

Fishtail Cottage - Fishtail Cottage Garden Party
A Delightsome Life - Home and Garden Thursday

The Golden Sycamore - Inspiration Gallery