Sept. 13, 2020 - The "Hat" Feeder

We found this interesting piece of wood along the shore at our lake home in northern Minnesota. The top is hollow, so I decided to put it up in our yard and use it as a bird feeder.

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I must confess to having an ulterior motive for using this feeder. It provides a very nice perch that is useful for capturing photos of our yard birds.

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I’ve been putting golden safflower seed in this feeder and it attracts many of the common seed-eating birds that visit our yard. Blue Jays are frequently seen eating from the “hat.”

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Black-capped Chickadees just love golden safflower seed. One after another they will land on the feeder, grab a seed, and fly away with it, only to be immediately replaced by the next hungry Chickadee.

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When the feeder is nearly empty, the Chickadees have a real stretch to reach for a seed.

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Red-breasted Nuthatches also visit the “hat.” The rust-colored plumage of this bird is especially brilliant. I think it must have recently molted. You can tell male and female Red-breasted Nuthatches apart by the color of the feathers on the head. Males have black feathers, like this one, and females have gray head feathers.

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We also have White-breasted Nuthatches in our yard. The same male/female head feather rule applies to them as it does to the Red-breasted Nuthatches. This one has gray feathers on top of its head, so it is a female.

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The nice thing about golden safflower is that squirrels don’t like it. So, even though the feeder is accessible to the squirrels, they just ignore it. However, we do have a Chipmunk that fills its cheeks with seed and scampers off to store it for winter.

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Here is a photo of my camera setup for taking these photos. When I came inside to take a break, this curious Red Squirrel wanted to see what I had been up to.

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