How About a Bird Bath by A.M. Westerling

If you’ve been following my posts, you know I’ve been blogging about the flowers we grow in our garden. This time, I thought I’d talk about another lovely feature – the small pond we have on our back patio that the birds really love. It’s positioned below a Mugo pine so it’s easy for them to hop onto the bar and dip their heads to reach the trickling water. 

The majority of our visitors are sparrows and once we had five of them lined up at the same time! We’ve had chickadees, robins, (both pictured below) and more exotics such as nuthatches and finches. 

The largest bird we’ve had was a magpie that bathed itself and left a heck of a mess behind. We’ve even had squirrels drink from it – the birds didn’t seem to mind sharing. They’re very polite too, waiting their turn in the Mugo. I’ve taken to putting out a smaller dish in early spring until it’s time to take out the larger one as the birds remember where the water is and they come looking for it.   

Our bird bath seems to attract as many birds as a feeder would and it’s a lot less messy! I of course add water every day and my husband will regularly replace the water or add a shock of chlorine to clean it. It’s important to keep the water clean as birds will poop in it. As they get heavier either by bathing or drinking, they instinctively get rid of any useless weight which makes them more efficient flyers.

 We’ve put rocks in it so the birds have a place to stand although they seem to like drinking directly from the fountain feature. As it turns out, birds love dripping water and find the sight and sound of moving irresistible. Also, it’s best to keep the bird bath out of direct sun so the water doesn’t get too hot or evaporate too quickly. Anything can work as a bird bath really, as long as it's not too deep. Or if it is, put lots of rocks in it as we have done. 

Okay, this has nothing to do with bird baths but the trees in our yard attract a lot of other birds, including this peregrine falcon feeding on a robin on the lower branch of our blue spruce several years ago. We live close to downtown - sometimes they nest on the office buildings. Sorry for the picture quality, I took it with my phone as I didn’t want to run into the house to get the camera.

 

I really enjoy bird watching and you’ll find I mention birds of some sort or other in all my books

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My latest release is Leah's Surrender, Book 2 of The Ladies of Harrington House Regency romance series.