Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp The
Speaker 1: House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome home. I'm Dean Sharp the House Whisper. I design
Speaker 1: custom homes and on the weekends. Right now, I am
Speaker 1: your guide to better understanding that place where you live.
Speaker 1: We love, love, love talking about your home, whether it's architecture, design, construction,
Speaker 1: DIY stuff, all things that make a home truly a home.
Speaker 1: And guess what we're doing today on the show. Well,
Speaker 1: I had mentioned this yesterday for those of you who
Speaker 1: don't live in southern California, we are having a real, live,
Speaker 1: actual spring. I mean the kind of spur that other
Speaker 1: places in the country regularly have. I don't know why,
Speaker 1: I don't know what it means afterwards, but normally and
Speaker 1: so cal you know, I was born in raised here.
Speaker 1: Normally spring pops in, you know, a good month ago,
Speaker 1: and it's just a slightly cooler version of summer, just
Speaker 1: sunny every day and warm but not hot. But this weather,
Speaker 1: this weather, it's rain, it's sunshine, it's cloudy, it's misty,
Speaker 1: then it's sunny again. Now it's cold, now it's warm.
Speaker 1: This is a legitimate, full blown North American spring that
Speaker 1: we're having. And we weren't thinking about this kind of
Speaker 1: weather when we put our show schedule together. But today
Speaker 1: we are talking about spring, and I'm talking about the
Speaker 1: life that is happening or could be happening in your
Speaker 1: own yard. Every springtime, I take some time to give
Speaker 1: attention and draw information up on birds, bees, flowers, trees. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know it rhymes. I didn't mean for that to happen,
Speaker 1: but and today's the day. Today, I've got three get
Speaker 1: I should say, up to three guests on the show.
Speaker 1: I hope they all show up, but the plan is
Speaker 1: to have three guests on the show today. We're going
Speaker 1: to be talking first about backyard birds and how to
Speaker 1: bring more of that life and beauty and how important
Speaker 1: it is as a home designer. It's critically important for
Speaker 1: me to introduce you to the ways to bring the
Speaker 1: nature that our homes displace back into our yards. So
Speaker 1: we'll first be talking to my good friend Richard Armording
Speaker 1: from wild Birds Unlimited today and we're going to get
Speaker 1: kind of the update on birds, and then my dear
Speaker 1: friend Nicole Palladino from Bee Catchers is going to update
Speaker 1: us on the state of bees. And then I hope
Speaker 1: certified arboras Bob Loft will be in here with me
Speaker 1: to talk about what we should and shouldn't be doing
Speaker 1: with our trees this time of year. Too many people
Speaker 1: do too much to their trees this time of year.
Speaker 1: So if any of that applies to you, you are
Speaker 1: not going to want to miss it. Let me introduce
Speaker 1: our awesome team. Elmer is on the board. Good morning, Elmer,
Speaker 1: Good morning, Dean. Elmer has such energy today, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you because he's working on like two hours sleep.
Speaker 1: So it was a good night last night, Elmer. It
Speaker 1: was a good night. You did your job, and so
Speaker 1: now he's making it work for us. Producers. Matt and
Speaker 1: NICKI are standing by to take calls, and yes, I
Speaker 1: am going to try and take calls today. So there
Speaker 1: they are. They are they are here? Are they are
Speaker 1: they near mic?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: They mic both here? All right, turn them on. I
Speaker 1: can't see him here. Hello, Hello, good hello, Hello, Hey guys.
Speaker 1: It's good to talk to you. You know, it's almost
Speaker 1: it's so rare that you guys are actually near a
Speaker 1: microphone when I'm introducing you in the mornings, because you're
Speaker 1: already screening calls. I already see one call up on
Speaker 1: the board anyway, us saying hi and so happy that
Speaker 1: you guys are here. Thanks for having us. And you
Speaker 1: can tell Nikki, you can tell from her accent that
Speaker 1: she is from Georgia. I'm pretty or Kentucky. I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure he's south right here. And of course, my buddy,
Speaker 1: Eileen Gonzalez at the news desk, Good morning, Eileen, Good morning, Dean.
Speaker 1: How's it going. It's going good, It's going good. It's
Speaker 1: cloudy and rainy and drizzly, but you know, it's springtime,
Speaker 1: so I'm embracing the whole thing. Do we have a
Speaker 1: tea of choice this morning? Oh? We're three cups in,
Speaker 1: Oh ginger lemon to start today. Ease myself in, and
Speaker 1: now two cups of green tea later. I'm ready to go.
Speaker 1: She had an entire plan, She had a full on
Speaker 1: she had a full on tea strategy. I did he
Speaker 1: planned it out all right? Well, all right, so the
Speaker 1: team is here taking good care of you along with me,
Speaker 1: I would normally say, sitting across the table from me,
Speaker 1: my better half, Tina, she is here, She is here.
Speaker 1: I think she's just stepped out of the studio talking
Speaker 1: to Nicole Palladino right now, but we will hear from Tina.
Speaker 1: I promise we'll get her back in here so she
Speaker 1: can say hi to everybody. All right, let's get started,
Speaker 1: shall we. We will sit down here in just a
Speaker 1: couple of minutes and have a discussion about backyard birds
Speaker 1: with my very special guest, Richard armor Ding.
Speaker 2: Right after you're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on
Speaker 2: demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1: Dean Sharp, the house whisper here at your service to
Speaker 1: help you take your home to the next level. And
Speaker 1: the way that we are doing that today is we're
Speaker 1: talking about springtime, the birds that visit us, the bees,
Speaker 1: all of those kinds of things that we actually want
Speaker 1: more of in our gardens. Let's start off today with birds,
Speaker 1: and I have my dear friend, very special guest, Richard Armording,
Speaker 1: who is the owner of wild Birds Unlimited out here
Speaker 1: in Thousand Oaks, and my own resident bird expert. Richard.
Speaker 1: Thanks for being on the program again, my friend, thanks
Speaker 1: for having me. Let's talk about the state of birds
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 3: Springtime is an exciting time and for birds and for
Speaker 3: the birds in our backyard. Spring's nesting season, and so
Speaker 3: birds are very active building nests, attracting mates, feeding their
Speaker 3: babies once they hatch. So there's a lot of great activity.
Speaker 3: The usually the male birds are singing a lot because
Speaker 3: they want to establish territories, they want to attract a female,
Speaker 3: so there's a lot of great sounds. There's a lot
Speaker 3: of great activity.
Speaker 1: So it's the dating scene, the dating and the family
Speaker 1: scene happening all around us. Another just side note, and
Speaker 1: we'll talk more about this with one of our other
Speaker 1: guests this morning. But not a great time to kind
Speaker 1: of randomly prune trees.
Speaker 3: Definitely not. Birds are building nests and one of the
Speaker 3: things they do is they try very very hard to
Speaker 3: make the nests invisible because they want their babies to
Speaker 3: be safe from predators, and so they go to great
Speaker 3: lengths to make them almost impossible to see. And so
Speaker 3: if we're out there trimming our trees, we may not
Speaker 3: see a nest that's got eggs or chicks in it.
Speaker 1: So once that's disrupted, that's it. That's most of the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's the rare story of like I put
Speaker 1: the nest back up in it. Yeah, But yeah, but.
Speaker 3: If a nest falls out with eggs in it, the
Speaker 3: eggs are going to crack. If the babies are not
Speaker 3: self sufficient and they fall on the ground, there's a
Speaker 3: good chance that they won't make it. So springtime is
Speaker 3: not a good time to do any kind of tree pruning.
Speaker 3: It's best to wait until fall. October, November, early December
Speaker 3: is the best time.
Speaker 1: For the sake of the trees and for the sake
Speaker 1: of the birds as well. Yeah, because birds the little misnomer,
Speaker 1: big misnomer. I think a lot of people, other than
Speaker 1: maybe Big Bird on Sesame Street, birds don't live in nests.
Speaker 1: They don't live in their nests.
Speaker 3: No, that really the only time they use nests or
Speaker 3: holes in trees is when they are actually sitting on
Speaker 3: eggs or feeding babies that have hatched before the baby's fledge.
Speaker 1: So we don't have to worry about that nest, come fall,
Speaker 1: that abandoned nest.
Speaker 3: Right, if you find a nest in a tree in
Speaker 3: the fall, you know, anytime after about July or August,
Speaker 3: it's almost certainly not going to be in use.
Speaker 1: What is the how do you relate to people when
Speaker 1: coming to the store. What's the importance of backyard birds.
Speaker 3: Birds put a smile on people's face. They you know,
Speaker 3: they come in and they've got some big grin on
Speaker 3: their face. They say, oh, guess what I saw in
Speaker 3: my yard today. I saw a woodpecker at my bird feeder.
Speaker 3: I've never seen one before, and they're just so happy.
Speaker 3: It brings them joy.
Speaker 1: As a as a home designer, you wouldn't think that
Speaker 1: birds would be part of my purview, right you Like,
Speaker 1: you're supposed to be building houses and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But here's a reality something that that I've noticed that
Speaker 1: is well, it's it's something I've learned that's part of
Speaker 1: a and I'm very grateful about this, a new surge
Speaker 1: of what we call biophilic design inside the architectural community,
Speaker 1: and that is a love embracing the love of nature,
Speaker 1: embracing nature bringing it inside, at least visually and audibly.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that we've learned that for
Speaker 1: a human being, when it comes to distressing a human being,
Speaker 1: there is literally nothing more distressing audibly than the sound
Speaker 1: of bird song. And they've run these studies now up
Speaker 1: against you know, kind of like that relaxation tonal stuff
Speaker 1: that you can get on an app, which is lovely
Speaker 1: or total silence. You know, everybody I think understands that
Speaker 1: the noise of the city is literally city noise, urban noise,
Speaker 1: traffic noise. It is literally it translates into the human
Speaker 1: psyche as stress. There's no avoiding that. Right. People may love,
Speaker 1: they say, I love living in the city, but the
Speaker 1: fact of the matter is that noise is stress. I
Speaker 1: mean for everybody, city dwellers and country dwellers alike. But
Speaker 1: when when we sit there and actually monitor brain wave
Speaker 1: response and stress levels, cortisol levels. Okay, so what's the
Speaker 1: alternative to this silence? Is that the most relaxing thing?
Speaker 1: Is it this binaural music stuff that we you know,
Speaker 1: the gray noise and the white noise that we've developed,
Speaker 1: or the blue noise or bird song and you and
Speaker 1: there's no competition between them. Studies have shown that bird's
Speaker 1: song relaxes. And I have a theory about this, well,
Speaker 1: others have a theory about it, but I agree with it.
Speaker 1: And that is for all of this time, for millions
Speaker 1: of years, we've lived essentially an outdoor life, and birds
Speaker 1: being so hyper sensitive about the presence of predators or
Speaker 1: threats or fire or whatever. Right that anytime there is
Speaker 1: a threat happening in nature, birds go silent because they
Speaker 1: don't they don't want to give off their location. Right, Okay,
Speaker 1: So there is something that even if you'd never realize that,
Speaker 1: if you don't even know that, there's something about waking
Speaker 1: up in the morning and hearing a yard full of
Speaker 1: birds just happily going about their business that, on some
Speaker 1: I don't know, evolutionary subconscious level tells our minds, Hey,
Speaker 1: everything's okay, everything is okay. That is just miraculous and wonderful.
Speaker 1: It really is. It really is. So birds song is
Speaker 1: something that we really need as human beings.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, the color of the birds is great. To watch,
Speaker 3: the sound of them singing, the movement, just the activity.
Speaker 3: It all plays an effect on our brains helps us
Speaker 3: to relax, take stress away.
Speaker 1: Awesome. Okay, so we're gonna take a break. When we
Speaker 1: come back, I want to talk to you about how
Speaker 1: do people get started? Just like, all right, I'm convinced
Speaker 1: now I need birds, and but I have not heard
Speaker 1: I have no idea what to do. And then we're
Speaker 1: also you and I need to talk about my current
Speaker 1: life list here, okay, my current count of birds. You're not.
Speaker 1: You are not. You're gonna laugh because yours is like
Speaker 1: four times as big. Anyway, all right, we are going
Speaker 1: to continue this talk with my very special guest, Richard
Speaker 1: armor Ding from wild Birds Unlimited. Can you hang on
Speaker 1: for another segment? Absolutely? All right.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
Speaker 2: KFI Am sixty.
Speaker 1: Dean Sharp the house whisper here with you on yet
Speaker 1: another lovely spring Sunday morning, and today we are talking
Speaker 1: about life in your backyard, not just that new outdoor
Speaker 1: kitchen that you want, or the new hard escape or
Speaker 1: the new patio, but the real power of our backyard,
Speaker 1: and that is bringing life, landscape, nature back, bringing us
Speaker 1: much nature back. At every home, whether it's a human
Speaker 1: home or an animal home, displaces some other part of nature.
Speaker 1: If a gopher digs a tunnel underneath the field in
Speaker 1: the middle of a prairie, that gopher has displaced things,
Speaker 1: its life has displaced what was there previously. Humans displace nature.
Speaker 1: We just have to face that fact. Again. We don't
Speaker 1: have to feel overly guilty about it, but it is
Speaker 1: a reality that we should face. And if we are
Speaker 1: planning our homes well, then after we have our home
Speaker 1: in place. We should do everything we can to bring
Speaker 1: as much nature back into that zone as possible so
Speaker 1: that we have this thriving ecology around us. And there
Speaker 1: are one hundred different reasons why it is good for
Speaker 1: us to have that nature close at hand. And we're
Speaker 1: talking about that today specifically, right now, we're talking about birds,
Speaker 1: backyard birds with my very special in studio guest, Richard
Speaker 1: Armor Dang, owner of wild Birds Unlimited out here in
Speaker 1: Thousand Oaks. Richard, getting started, you, of all people, are
Speaker 1: imminently qualified to tell us is because that's what wild
Speaker 1: Bird's Unlimited is all about, getting people started. So let's
Speaker 1: say we got no clue, but we've decided, you know,
Speaker 1: all right, deans convinced me I need birds in my yard.
Speaker 1: I don't have birds in my yard. What do I do?
Speaker 3: It's real simple to get started. You need food for
Speaker 3: the birds. Is gonna be the first thing you want
Speaker 3: to do to attract them into your yard. A simple
Speaker 3: little feeder with some bird seed in it, particularly sunflower seed.
Speaker 3: It's called black oil sunflower seed. Almost all of our
Speaker 3: backyard birds love to eat it. And it's real simple
Speaker 3: to get started. Do you hang up a feeder, you
Speaker 3: put some bird seed in it, wait a little while,
Speaker 3: and the birds will show up.
Speaker 1: Now, what about those people. I've already heard some folks say, Hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I heard some guy talking about the fact
Speaker 1: that feeding birds in my backyard is disrupting their normal cycle,
Speaker 1: all of that kind of stuff, like we shouldn't be
Speaker 1: feeding birds.
Speaker 3: Well, birds when there is a bird feeder available, only
Speaker 3: get about one fifth of their diet from the bird feeder.
Speaker 3: The rest of their diet comes from natural sources. So
Speaker 3: if that feeder were to go empty for a period
Speaker 3: of time, they would not starve. They would just simp
Speaker 3: one of their other food sources.
Speaker 1: So we're not acting like drug dealers where we're making
Speaker 1: the birds dependent upon us, and it's supplemental.
Speaker 3: It is we're making their life a little bit easier,
Speaker 3: and we reap the benefit of that by being able
Speaker 3: to see them and hear them in our yard. So
Speaker 3: the birds enjoy it, they have a relatively easy meal,
Speaker 3: and we get the benefit of having them right there
Speaker 3: in front of us.
Speaker 1: Okay, So now you talked about sunflower seeds, black oil,
Speaker 1: sunflower seeds as a kind of a universal just a
Speaker 1: great easy you know, I mean broad spectrum kind of food,
Speaker 1: but you guys sell very specific mixes to attract different
Speaker 1: kinds of birds.
Speaker 3: Yes, to some extent, there are specific birds that like
Speaker 3: to eat specific foods. There are some birds that are
Speaker 3: strictly insect eaters. Bluebirds, for example, almost entirely their entire
Speaker 3: diet is almost all insects, so they are unlikely to
Speaker 3: go for sunflower seed. But there are other things that
Speaker 3: you can put out that will attract these other kinds
Speaker 3: of birds. There are other kinds of birds that aren't
Speaker 3: particularly fond of sunflower seeds, so millet is another option.
Speaker 3: Peanuts are very popular with certain birds. So as you
Speaker 3: get more and more into it can expand the types
Speaker 3: of foods that you're putting out for birds and increase
Speaker 3: the variety.
Speaker 1: Of birds that you see in your yard. So by
Speaker 1: expanding that you can draw more in and different sizes
Speaker 1: of birds as well. You know, we've got a woodpecker.
Speaker 1: We have two woodpecker feeders that we use that have
Speaker 1: larger nuts and things like that. For the larger birds
Speaker 1: like blue jays and woodpeckers are very much attracted to
Speaker 1: that and they stay away from the smaller feeders, which
Speaker 1: you know, the wrens and the sparrows and the finches
Speaker 1: just mob on a daily basis and it's great just
Speaker 1: to have everybody around, everybody around. And then there are
Speaker 1: plants that we've got, like we have a lot of
Speaker 1: sage in our backyard that the hummers, the hummingbirds love. Yes, Now,
Speaker 1: if you don't have those kinds of things, there are
Speaker 1: hummingbird feeders as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hummingbird feeders are another supplemental food. Hummingbirds get more
Speaker 3: than half of their diet from eating insects. They catch
Speaker 3: little flying insects and that makes up about sixty percent
Speaker 3: of their diet. But they also like to eat nectar
Speaker 3: from flowers, which is essentially sugar water. So if you
Speaker 3: have a hummingbird feeder with sugar water in it, you
Speaker 3: can put that somewhere where you can attract the hummingbirds
Speaker 3: to someplace maybe where you can see them.
Speaker 1: A little bit easier. And why are hummingbird feeders always red?
Speaker 3: Well, most of the flowers that they like to eat
Speaker 3: from are red, and so they are just naturally attracted
Speaker 3: to the color red, and so hummingbird feeders have been
Speaker 3: made red to help to attract them.
Speaker 1: And do we know why hummingbirds are naturally attracted to
Speaker 1: red as opposed to just all the other flowers out there.
Speaker 1: I do, you do? I do? Tell me, I'm going
Speaker 1: to learn something. Okay, here's the thing, right, So, when
Speaker 1: it comes to nectar, who are the only other individuals
Speaker 1: that hummingbirds are competing with? Bees? Bees? Bees have an
Speaker 1: incredible span of of vision in their spectrum, but their
Speaker 1: spectrum of vision moves from our normal spectrum and slides
Speaker 1: far into the ultraviolet, the blue side of things. So
Speaker 1: bees see bright colors in certain flowers that you and
Speaker 1: I think are just drab and just normally fade in.
Speaker 1: But they don't. They don't see red. Red flowers are
Speaker 1: relatively meaningless to a bee. They are not out there flashing, hey,
Speaker 1: nectar source and I believe that somehow evolutionarily, hummingbirds who
Speaker 1: get frustrated arriving at a flower to find out that
Speaker 1: the bees have already drained it, have gravitated towards because
Speaker 1: the hummingbirds can see into the red spectrum really well.
Speaker 1: So hummingbirds go for red flowers because they know that
Speaker 1: the bees haven't been there. That makes a lot of sense,
Speaker 1: and that's just again, just amazing right, just amazing. All right,
Speaker 1: we're going to take a break. Can you stay for
Speaker 1: one more with sure, We're gonna take a break, We're
Speaker 1: gonna come back. We're gonna talk about my Feeble Life list,
Speaker 1: which will maybe impress a lot of people, but the
Speaker 1: goal is to get people excited about that. And then
Speaker 1: also when it comes to the feeders, let's talk about
Speaker 1: the prop the problematic practicality, Squirrels, rats, rodents, the things
Speaker 1: that also get attracted around bird feeders that we don't
Speaker 1: necessarily want an abundance of in our yard. So you
Speaker 1: can hang on, I can all right.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
Speaker 2: KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1: Always a privilege and a pleasure to be with you
Speaker 1: on a Sunday morning, especially a beautiful spring Sunday morning.
Speaker 1: And I say that in all seriousness. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: whether it's cloudy or rainy or sunny where you are.
Speaker 1: Springtime is just a beautiful time of year. Southern California
Speaker 1: is actually having here's an unexpected thing. We are having
Speaker 1: a full blown traditional spring. There are days in which
Speaker 1: there is sunshine and warmth and water falling from the
Speaker 1: sky and clouds all in the same day. That is
Speaker 1: called spring everywhere else in the world, and we are
Speaker 1: having it. And so we're talking about the benefits of spring,
Speaker 1: what's happening in spring around us, especially at our homes,
Speaker 1: in our backyards, and how to maximize the life that
Speaker 1: is happening there. We're talking about birds right now, backyard
Speaker 1: birds with my very special guest, Richard Armording from wild
Speaker 1: Birds Unlimited. He's the owner operator of the wild Birds
Speaker 1: Unlimited out here in Thousand Oaks. Okay, so we've talked
Speaker 1: about getting started, let's talk about the problems that people
Speaker 1: bring up. I put a bird feeder in my backyard
Speaker 1: and the next thing, you know, it was covered. You know,
Speaker 1: we had rats everywhere, or squirrels were stealing all the food,
Speaker 1: and so I gave up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, those are real common issues that people bring up.
Speaker 3: They come in the store, their fresh straded. There are
Speaker 3: some solutions. Squirrels are a challenge because they are very clever,
Speaker 3: they're very agile, they are very tenacious. They don't give
Speaker 3: up easily. But there are ways that you can feed
Speaker 3: the birds without feeding the squirrels. Rats are insidious in
Speaker 3: southern California. They're all over the place. If there is
Speaker 3: a lot of bird food that gets dumped on the ground,
Speaker 3: they're going to find it. But there are some solutions
Speaker 3: to that too, to keep the amount of food that
Speaker 3: goes onto the ground out of very minimum.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's talk about the rats first. Because the rats,
Speaker 1: rats and mice are they're not as athletic as squirrels. No,
Speaker 1: squirrels are like super I mean, they are incredible. We
Speaker 1: have just so everybody knows. You know, of course, we
Speaker 1: have squirrels around here, and we've taken all the steps
Speaker 1: that you're about to hear Richard describe, and still one squirrel,
Speaker 1: one squirrel has figured out how to how to break through,
Speaker 1: and still and I'll have to describe to you how
Speaker 1: how she gets over to the feeder, at which point
Speaker 1: Tina and I are like, you know what, buddy, have it,
Speaker 1: have at it. You have earned it. You know, he's
Speaker 1: not depleting the supply that bad. And we're like, we're
Speaker 1: proud of you. We're so proud that you have gotten
Speaker 1: through all of these hurdles, and so you deserve every
Speaker 1: little seed you get there. But generally speaking, they all work.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about rats first, because rats have certain limitations.
Speaker 1: Rats can't jump four feet vertically in the air or
Speaker 1: anything like that. Right, So the real concern with rats
Speaker 1: is the refuse, the stuff that spills out onto the ground.
Speaker 1: How do you stop that?
Speaker 3: Well, the first thing you want to do is use
Speaker 3: a blend of seed that doesn't have a lot of
Speaker 3: filler seed or any filler seed in it. A lot
Speaker 3: of seed blends that you get maybe at the grocery store,
Speaker 3: at the hardware store, they put seeds in there that
Speaker 3: are very inexpensive. They want to bring the price down,
Speaker 3: but the birds aren't interested in needing them, so they
Speaker 3: just throw them on the ground and that becomes a
Speaker 3: food source for the rats. So there is a big
Speaker 3: difference in birds seed absolutely. Okay, we mentioned before sunflower
Speaker 3: seed is what most of the birds like to eat.
Speaker 3: But there's other very common seeds that go into mixes,
Speaker 3: like a seed called red milo. It's these little red balls.
Speaker 3: The birds won't touch it. I see that all the
Speaker 3: time in those little package. You can see all the
Speaker 3: red specks in there. Yeah, they have no interest in it.
Speaker 3: Birds have no interest in it. But the rodents on
Speaker 3: the ground they love it. They're happy with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what about shells like you talked about sunflower seeds before.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the birds don't eat the shells. They crack up
Speaker 3: in the shell, they eat the inside, they throw the
Speaker 3: shell on the ground. Those shells sometimes have little bits
Speaker 3: of seed left in them, and that can be an
Speaker 3: attractive source for the rodents on the ground as well.
Speaker 3: So one option is to use seed that doesn't have
Speaker 3: shells on it. We have what's called our no Mess
Speaker 3: seed blends. It's just the edible part of the seed.
Speaker 3: The birds eat it all. They don't drop those shells
Speaker 3: on the ground, and that's one less thing that's on
Speaker 3: there down there to attract those unwanted rats.
Speaker 1: So without that just sort of detritus laying around, it's
Speaker 1: just it. And we have found that, just so everybody
Speaker 1: knows to be absolutely true. We use only no Mess
Speaker 1: seed blends. So they are all pre shelled, right, They
Speaker 1: are just the seed itself, all seeds that the birds want, right,
Speaker 1: so they don't throw excess away. But of course, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, they're not sitting there with napkins and silverware.
Speaker 1: Birds are not very neat feeders, so some fall to
Speaker 1: the ground even when I refill the bird feeders, you know,
Speaker 1: some of it falls onto the ground. But what we
Speaker 1: notice is as we're out watching the birds hit the feeders,
Speaker 1: that the larger birds, like our mourning doves, who aren't
Speaker 1: going to sit on these small feeder perches, they will
Speaker 1: be the first ones down on the ground. We'll we'll
Speaker 1: have finches and sparrows and all sorts of stuff happening
Speaker 1: up above and down below. The turtle doves all fly
Speaker 1: in occasionally a jay or something like that, some of
Speaker 1: the larger birds, and they're just cleaning up around the bottom.
Speaker 1: And honestly, at the end of the day, there are
Speaker 1: no seeds laying on the ground underneath our seat, our feeders, yep,
Speaker 1: and therefore no rats.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the doves like you mentioned, and there's other birds
Speaker 3: like junkos and toys that love to eat on the ground.
Speaker 1: They're your cleanup crew there, it is. Okay, So now
Speaker 1: squirrels tricky. They're tricky squirrels. We really should get the
Speaker 1: feeders up off the ground to a certain degree and
Speaker 1: away from objects that they can cling to and then
Speaker 1: jump over, because they've got a pretty good horizontal you know,
Speaker 1: leaping rang.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they can jump eight to ten feet horizontal.
Speaker 1: Yes, they can but most of the time squirrels not
Speaker 1: being stupid, they're gonna come down from above if they can.
Speaker 1: And that's where like a squirrel baffle comes into play. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a couple different kinds of squirrel baffles. There's baffles
Speaker 1: that can stop them from climbing down from above, like
Speaker 1: you mentioned. There's also baffles that you can put on
Speaker 1: a pole if you've got hanging from a pole, to
Speaker 1: stop them from climbing up that pole. To keep them
Speaker 1: away from the feeder. Again, they are very good jumpers,
Speaker 1: so you have to keep that feeder far enough away
Speaker 1: from trees or fences that they can jump from. And
Speaker 1: there are squirrel proof feeders as well that have mechanisms
Speaker 1: on them that close off with the extra weight of
Speaker 1: the squirrel to keep them they get to the feeder,
Speaker 1: to keep them from eating the food that's in there, right,
Speaker 1: because the little perches there are like spring loaded, right,
Speaker 1: And the birds who weigh nothing because hollow but I
Speaker 1: mean birds just weigh nothing when they're sitting there, no problem.
Speaker 1: But as soon as the weight of this you know,
Speaker 1: relatively large roadent gets on there, their own weight pulls
Speaker 1: the door shut. Yep. And so it's just like, oh.
Speaker 3: Right, and they learn pretty quickly that they're not going
Speaker 3: to get any food out of and they don't waste
Speaker 3: their time with it. Yep, all right, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: we ran all right, we're real quick. We're running late,
Speaker 3: but real quick. In my yard, I have made a
Speaker 3: life list, a life list for those of you who
Speaker 3: don't know nerd bird community stuff. Life lists are like
Speaker 3: what what a birder? All the birds that a birder
Speaker 3: has spotted. We've made a specific lifeless just for our
Speaker 3: yard because we want to keep track of and keep
Speaker 3: encouraging bird species. And when people say, okay, so how
Speaker 3: many species on your lifeless, and they're always shocked when
Speaker 3: I say, well, as of right now, I've got thirty
Speaker 3: eight different species of birds. And most people are like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, thirty eight species that I thought there
Speaker 3: were just a few sparrows and stuff out there.
Speaker 1: People are always amazed, except you. You're not amazed because
Speaker 1: when I first proudly told you, Richard, listen, I got
Speaker 1: my I'm up in the thirties, and you're like, good,
Speaker 1: you got like you sort of like patted me on
Speaker 1: the head. You pat them. That's a good, that's good.
Speaker 1: That's a good starting because how many birds have you
Speaker 1: got in your yard? I don't know the exact number,
Speaker 1: but it's in the nineties, oh my god, the nineties.
Speaker 3: And I've read about people in certain parts of the
Speaker 3: country that have like two hundred birds on their yard list,
Speaker 3: and that.
Speaker 1: I understand because I just think everywhere else is just
Speaker 1: more plentiful than here in so many ways. But the
Speaker 1: fact of the matter is, I mean, you live right
Speaker 1: here with us, and so ninety different species of birds
Speaker 1: that can and will come into your home.
Speaker 3: Yeah, some of those are rarities that probably will never
Speaker 3: ever show up again. But you know, just over the
Speaker 3: course of twenty some odd years, we've been keeping real
Speaker 3: good records of what we see. We're constantly looking out
Speaker 3: in the yard, and when something new shows up, we
Speaker 3: get really excited.
Speaker 1: So do we? So do we? I mean, I'm excited
Speaker 1: about my thirty eight right now because they are regular customers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's only a couple of like rare sightings on there.
Speaker 1: Otherwise they are just regular attendees of life in our yard,
Speaker 1: and we're so proud of they're your friends, and that's
Speaker 1: something that everybody can achieve. Yes, if I can achieve
Speaker 1: thirty something, You're like, oh, that's easy, that's easy, Richard.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for spending the time this morning a pleasure.
Speaker 1: All right, y'all, you are listening to Home with Dean
Speaker 1: Sharp on KFI. This has been Home with Dean Sharp,
Speaker 1: the House Whisper. Tune into the live broadcast on k
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