Wild Birds Unlimited can help stretch your bird food budget


This may seem silly to tell you this as a bird feeding store, but you need to stretch your bird feeding budget. Whether you have a single feeder in your yard or a wildlife oasis, feeding the birds brings joy to every member of the family. Make sure it stays a part of your daily life with these tips for getting more bang for your buck:
1. Use the Right Foods - you get better value with regionalized blends
2. Use No-Mess Blends - you pay less per pound with no mess blends
3. Use Seed Cylinders - cylinders last and the birds sit still to pick the seeds
4. Protect Your Bird Food - cages, hot pepper, baffles are all solutions we can help you with
5. Feed a Little at a Time - only feed when you can watch the birds
6. Join our Daily Savings Club - save 15% on all bird food by joining our DSC. This is the best value in town.

Hummingbird - Hang feeders up between April 1 and April 15 for Culpeper area!!


Certainly one of the most beautiful birds in the world and truly one of the most fascinating.

What makes them so special?

Size for one…or the lack there-of. They really are the smallest of all birds, and yet, with more than 330 species, they are the second largest family of birds in the world. A fact made even more remarkable when considering that they are found no where else on the planet except in the Americas. Not in Asia, not in Europe, not in Africa or anywhere else except the Western Hemisphere.

They are the undisputed avian aerobatic flight champions, masters at hovering and the only birds able to fly backwards and upside down.

They have the fastest heart rate, the fastest wing beat, the fastest metabolism and the largest heart, in proportion to body size, of any bird.

A large heart, but a really small brain, the smallest of any bird…about the size of a BB! But it’s a good brain, capable of navigating thousands of miles to migrate back to the exact same feeder year after year.

And the smallest of all birds has one of the biggest appetites…ingesting up to eight times their weight in solid food and liquid every day.

How much is eight times your body weight?

80% of their diet is insects - so avoid the pesticides.  

As for that “solid” food…they use the flexible tip of their bill to capture insects and insect eggs from the ground and on plants. They love spiders and spider eggs. And as for the “liquid” portion, their forked, open-grooved tongues lap up nectar from the feeders and flowers at an amazing 12 times a second.

So, maybe they aren’t too good to be true…but they are too good to miss!

Do you have your feeder out yet?

 

Fun Facts About Orioles - Get your feeders and fruit ready for April

  1. Orioles are insect and fruit eaters. They usually stay hidden in the trees eating and singing their beautiful whistling notes. They can be drawn down from their perches with foods like orange slices, grape jelly, mealworms and nectar feeders.
  2. When not feeding on nectar, orioles seek out caterpillars, fruits, insects, and spiders.
  3. Unlike many insect eating birds, Baltimore Orioles will eat spiny or hairy caterpillars, including such pest species as fall webworms, tent caterpillars, and gypsy moths.
  4. Most male Baltimore Oriole songs vary enough from one another as to be unique to each individual. It is believed females can identify and locate their mate by its distinct song.
  5. The Oriole nest is an engineering masterpiece. They weave a hanging-basket nest with plant fibers, grasses, vine and tree bark and sometimes string or yarn placed out on the small twigs of a branch 6-45 feet in the air. This keeps them safe from most predators.
  6. It takes as many as 12 days for an Oriole to weave its nest. One Baltimore Oriole was observed spending 40 hours building a nest with about 10,000 stitches and the tying of thousands of knots, all with its beak.
  7. The female Baltimore Oriole builds her nest with little or no help from its mate. Only the female incubates and broods, both feed the young.
  8. While modern day Oriole nests are made primarily of plant fibers, Oriole nests collected in the late 1800s, before the age of the automobile, were made almost exclusively of horsehair.
  9. Orioles will lay 4-5 eggs anywhere from April to June. The young will fledge as late as 30 days from egg laying.
  10. Orioles are found across North America in the summer. Some species winter in the tropics and others in Mexico.
  11. Most Baltimore Orioles spend their winters in southern Mexico, Central America and the tropics, but some will stay in the southern states of the U.S., with a few reports as far north as New England.
  12. The Baltimore Oriole is a common inhabitant of suburban landscapes due to is preference for open settings that are bordered with mature trees.
  13. Oriole’s are a member of Icteridae family, meaning that their closest bird relatives include meadowlarks, blackbirds, bobolinks and grackles.
  14. The oriole gets its name from the Latin aureolus, which means golden.
  15. The oldest banded Baltimore Oriole recaptured in the wild had lived 11 years and 7 months.

 


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