#bird baths

Celebrate Urban Birds

We have many house finches around our bird baths. They love to bathe! Often, the red head and breast of the males are much redder and brighter, suggesting genetic changes, diet changes, or other influences.

Originally native to the U.S. southwest and Mexican northwest, thousands of house finches were illegally imported into the New England states. When risked with arrest and seizure, the bird bootleggers released them and they thrived.

Now, they're among the most prolific songbirds across the lower 48 states. They certainly love my state of Indiana! And I love them!

"The first-ever comprehensive assessment of net population changes in the U.S. and Canada reveals across-the-board declines that scientists call “staggering.” All told, the North American bird population is down by 2.9 billion breeding adults, with devastating losses among birds in every biome. Forests alone have lost 1 billion birds. Grassland bird populations collectively have declined by 53%, or another 720 million birds.

Forests alone have lost 1 billion birds. Grassland bird populations collectively have declined by 53%, or another 720 million birds.

The losses include favorite species seen at bird feeders, such as Dark-eyed Juncos (or “snowbirds,” down by 168 million) and sweet-singing White-throated Sparrows (down by 93 million). Eastern and Western Meadowlarks are down by a combined 139 million individuals. Even the beloved Red-winged Blackbird—a common sight in virtually every marsh and wet roadside across the continent—has declined by 92 million birds."

Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 2019

(It hasn't gotten better, except that during the pandemic, people seemed to suddenly get a kick out of birdwatching. That will certainly help....)

"[Photography] is prophecy in reverse. Like Cassandra, only looking backwards."

Cuz I use a huge bowl of water and try to get them to bathe and then just ends up with them screaming and running around and acting like I'm torturing them by pouring water or putting water on them

Hi! So I don't really bathe my birds myself much! When it is really hot in the summer, the cockatiels like me to use a spray/mist bottle to gently give them a spray bath, so I do that sometimes. But other than that, everyone bathes themselves!

I have two Lixit baths which are very popular with my budgies and with Zelda:

And I have a large glass (or Pyrex? I don't really know the difference) flan dish that they like bathing in too:

Some days no-one has a bath, but I always put the baths out fresh so they have the option to. My cockatiels are much less confident at bathing, and so they don't bathe as often as the others - but they're learning to bathe themselves well!

Inspiration for a mid-sized farmhouse partial sun front yard concrete paver water fountain landscape in summer.

A Northern Flicker at the peanut butter suet feeder. Photo by Bruce Stambaugh Feeding the birds is one of our favorite winter pastimes. My wife and I enjoy watching college sports, but the colorful birds take precedence over the TV. Feeding the birds provides us with plenty of entertainment from fall to spring, and we only have to look out our windows. We have done so for all of our nearly 55…