[Carol – Mid-Mo.]

Gin, I believe most everyone’s disappeared quite a while back- Tammy did you have to resubmit yours or what?

[Carol – Mid-Mo.]

Tammy, check your personal e-mail – I want to help you. P.S. I had a good friend die this week so I have been gone quite a bit.

[Carol – Mid-Mo.]

Tammy, it is a long story. Started out by getting photos from wherever I could (Sialis, permission from Dave Keener and others, and my own photos. Put these in JPG format on my computer (if not already done) and then put them on a DVD disc to run on my DVD player. Then I would use whatever screen (usually a TV) was available wherever I went. This was kind of burdensome but I got the job done without having a lot of equipment, just my own small DVD player. Power Point would be fine except when you go to different locations as I did you never knew what was available; therefore I always had to visit the location to check it out first. Over about 3 years I did probably about 20 presentations but have pretty much hit all the places/organizations available around here and really not doing any now. Did go to a suburb of Kansas City one time to a district club meeting, but that was as far as I went (about 50 miles). If you have a laptop and the location has a projector I would suggest that a Power Point would be the easiest. Since I did not have either one, I had to go the long and complicated route but got the job done. Good luck.

Yes, the HOSP matter is delicate but I always told the group the facts (along with pictures) but did not push the matter and did mention that they did not have to watch the end where I showed about 3 pictures of HOSP attacks.

[Carol – Mid-Mo.]

UPDATE: Did see my blues the past two days – guess the weather has been good enough they are not too hungry, but they did eat suet today.

[Carol – Mid-Mo.]

David, love to share this recipe from Cher (our forum administrator)
1 cup lard & 1 cup crunchy peanut butter – melt in microwave just until smooth
Add 1/3 cup sugar into the melted lard & peanut butter
Then add dry ingredients:
2 cups quick cook oatmeal
2 cups yellow cornmeal
1 cup flour (preferably whole wheat) (optional raisins or dried fruit, mine don’t eat this)
This will be a fairly stiff dough – just stir all together – let cool and set about 5 minutes or more & then mix up again until crumbled consistency – then cool good either outside where cold or in fridge. When good & cool you can put in large zip lock bag to store, getting some out when needed. I usually feed about 1/2 cup or more two times a day – I put it in my cage feeder to exclude the large birds, which will gobble it all up immediately (I have seed feeder for them). It may take your blues a while to learn to like this, just like the mealworms, but my birds (& all other winter birds) love it. It is full of protein (peanut butter), fat to keep warm & a little bit of sugar for energy. Of course you can buy the cake suets but much cheaper to make your own) Good luck!

P.S. this and many other suet recipes are on the Sialis.org website.

[Carol – Mid-Mo.]

Tammy is correct – need to keep feeding them if you want to see them – they look and stay where there is a food supply. My blues have definitely figured no more worms (besides costly, they will freeze quickly in our Missouri weather) so they are at the suet bowl regularly now. I was only seeing my pair for a while, and recently I saw four of them. Keep that feeder up & filled and you will have a joyous winter, although I’m not sure about your weather there. I live right on the edge of the Missouri north-south line where just a little more north they don’t usually overwinter because it is too cold.

[Carol – Mid-Mo.]

Dana, can’t imagine why they cannot get inside the cage feeder – have you measured the distance between the wire holes – it should be 1 1/2″ clearance space. Sometimes I have seen my blues try a different hole if they cannot get into one, after all, the holes could be off a fraction of an inch or so, but they should find their way in and out. It is good that they are trying at least. Keep at it and watch closely to see what is happening. My blues are eating suet out of my cage feeder now – they balked at first but we have had two snows already and I believe they finally figured out there was some food in there! Good luck . . . .

[Carol – Mid-Mo.]

Connie – KEEP THOSE BEARS AWAY!!

[Carol – Mid-Mo.]

Well, Connie, they have finally figured out there are NO MORE WORMS so have bee coming around somewhat to the suet bowl, but so are all the other birds, mainly juncos and white-crowned sparrows and house finches which are the winter birds here. I have seen my blues some, but there are too many others around to watch all the time. We had our first snow of the year here in Missouri, which was about 1 inch and freezing temps. Burrr. . . .

[Carol – Mid-Mo.]

Connie, this is strange but I have noticed this also this season. I NEVER had any worms left in the bowl when they were eating in all these years, but this year I have noticed that they will leave a few, although they eventually will come & finish them off in an hour or so. My batch of worms were larger this season than usual but I compensated for this by giving a few less worms. But I NEVER had this happen in the past. Your 12 to 15 worms is really about the right amount for mama, papa & four babies, and really not any too much. Are the ones in the new newborns? If so, they are not fed worms for the first 2 or 3 days. I have noticed that if I wait too long in the morning they do not come immediately like they do about the first 1/2 to 1 hour after sunrise.

[Carol – Mid-Mo.]

Lisa, I sure bet they are still around – maybe just not in your immediate area. My blues from previous (not last) nest were coming to the worm bowl very regular. Now that the last group fledged about 10-12 days ago, they are beginning to come to the worm bowl and I believe the parents have pretty much chased off the previous group, at least for now, until the youngest ones can get acquainted with the worms & bowl. Isn’t this fun………………..!!

[Carol – Mid-Mo.]

Yes, Carri – they can. I just had 4 fledge today and we had some very hot (mid to upper 90-‘s for several days while they were in their box. We did manage to get one day of relief in-between about two weeks of very hot weather, and yes, I was worried. But I had foam heat shields on the box with the top shield being very oversized to shade the box better, as it has no shade whatsoever from trees. I’m not sure they would have made it without the shield, however. From what I know and Gin mentioned here, heat related problems are more likely with eggs than hatchlings. P.S. Remember to have proper cross ventilation at the top on the sides of your box, also. Good luck.

[Carol – Mid-Mo.]

Connie said it – you need to get rid of the HOSP. DO NOT let them hatch any eggs – you need to trap and dispose of them before any eggs are hatched. It helps to have a 2nd box to keep them busy at building while your blues build in a different nest. You can keep taking the HOSP nesting material out and they will keep putting it back in. Don’t forget to put up a sparrow spooker – see sialis.org website if you are not familiar with this. In my 11 seasons I have not lost a nest to HOSP (although there are many around which I get rid of) – only lost 2 or 3 nests to house wrens. Sorry this happened to your blues.

[Carol – Mid-Mo.]

Isn’t that fun to watch Connie – when the babies come to eat at the worm dish. I have my first brood doing this and yes, they are as big as their parents – been about 3 weeks since they fledged. My 2nd nesting is due to fledge in about 4 or 5 days – sure will be relieved as this hot spell has been really bad for about 2 weeks.

[Carol – Mid-Mo.]

Sorry, Cari, this quote was from “Sassy” or Connie who started this thread about mealworms. Connie, hope you read this as my previous post about being confused about “Rainbow” worms was for you. They are just standard mealwords, not Rainbow colored! (thought you sounded confused about them)

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