My favorite birds are the perky little chickadees...
~~~ chicka-dee-dee-dee! ~~~
They are so friendly and cheerful. They just make my day! I keep meaning to try the hand-feeding method shown in Birds-n-Blooms magazine. They sell a plywood or pasteboard mannequin, but you can make a dummy kind of thing with an old shirt and pants, with hat on its head. Position it so a hand is outstretched and put seeds in the hand. After the birds get used to eating out of the dummy's hand, go outside in the same outfit and they are likely to eat right out of your hand.
Some people have had success training them by just standing or sitting still, but I think I'll hedge my bet!
Handfeeding Wild Birds
Oh GW - this would be so cool if it really does work. :-)
I have a tan rain poncho I was thinking about putting outside on a post. That would be easy to remove and put over whatever I'm wearing. My dummy will have to be seated, though - I'm not standing still forever in one spot!
Janice
Jun 02, 2001
Whenever I am parked and eating fast food I always throw a small peice of bread out the window and I always get takers!! I have had all kinds of birds eat lunch with me. I even had followers when I was on line at the drive-thru of Micky D's with the previous days french fries ( keep stuff like that for just those occasions).
Try sitting outside with a couple peices of bread. The birds love it and soon you will have 6-7 birds getting very close in a short amount of time!!!
Gee I don't even know what they look like! Goign to go look them up now. I wonder if we have them in Maryland in my area???
This sounds like a REALLY cool idea!
Kathie
We stopped at McDonald's drive-thru today and pulled into a parking space to eat. As soon as the car stopped, a little sparrow landed on the hood of the car, hopped toward the window and just started looking at us. He was obviously used to people tossing bits of goodies onto their cars! And, of course, his cheek was rewarded liberally. LOL