Cardinals

[harvey lee]

I put up a feeder for Cardinals and put sunflower seeds in it.I know it will take time for the cardinals to find it.I have so many blackbirds they are eating alot of food.Is there a way to feed the cardinals and not have so many blackbirds?

[mplspug]

Are we talking grackles? Are you using the large sunflower seeds or the oilers? I get grackles at my feeder, well below it anyway, but that is only when I throw the corn/squirrel mixure out on the ground. They may also avoid the feeder because it is too small,. Come to think of it, I have never seen my Cardinals actually at my feeder. They feed on the groud too. The only things I have seen actually land on the feeder are chichadees and finches.

[harvey lee]

oil and grackles mostly

[Tom Wilson]

Harvey--the blackbirds will eat you out of house and home with the sunflower seeds--you've got to decide whether or not you want to keep feeding them. They should go away pretty soon though. The cardinals will eat safflower seed. Put that out, and they will find it if there are any close to you. I mix safflower in mine, but the blackbirds, doves, and, blue jays just toss it out on to the ground to get to the other seed. I do have two pair of cardinals though, so I leave well enough alone.

Tom W

[harvey lee]

So I should not feed sunflower seed but instead feed safflower seed?My neighbors have cardinals so I figured I would get a few.

[Tom Wilson]

No sir, thats not what I meant. I feed sunflower by the ton, but I add the safflower for the cardinals, peanuts for the jays, etc... If you don't want to feed the blackbirds, then yes, you'll have to change the seed that you provide. Personally though, I wouldn't limit it--I would just add the safflower.

Tom W

[Steve Foss]

I agree with Tom. The huge majority of feeder birds will eat black oil sunflower, even birds that are popularly believed to prefer other seeds. I get goldfinches, siskins and redpolls all winter without feeding a single piece of thistle (niger) seed, and birds that prefer other seed than black oil still come into my stations in great numbers. You can add safflower to your mix if you want, but the blackbirds don't tend to stay all summer, and the cardinals will readily eat the black oil sunflower, and if you have a good location you'll get cardinals.

Cardinals like thick vegetation and feed on the ground at least as often, and probably more often, then they perch on feeders. If your location is wide open with no woody edges or thick shrubs nearby, cardinals will stay in your neighbor's yard if it feels better to them.

But be patient and wait and see. Never know what tomorrow will bring . . .

[harvey lee]

Thank you for the advice.I will continue to do what I have been and add the others.

[mplspug]

I second putting some safflower out. I have 3 feeders. Oil Sflower seeds, Safflower and thistle. The thistle has yet to be touched, but safflower and sunflower seeds attract just about everything.

[buzzsaw]

Here's one of the females that is nesting back behind our house.

[Steve Foss]

Nice one Buzz. Great bokeh on that.

[buzzsaw]

With low light conditions I had to go to a higher F-stop/slower shutter speed to capture more light which creates a better DOF and then your kinda hoping the bird doesn't move too much or the pictures blurred. She was pretty stationary.

[Steve Foss]

Slower shutter speed and still sharp tells me your technique is good.

Unless I'm misunderstanding what you wrote, you stopped down your fstop a stop or two from wide open and your shutter speed slowed down to compensate. Stopping down your aperature decreases the light coming through the aperature, but slowing down your shutter speed increases the time the light comes through the aperature, so it evens out. An example: If I'm on an automatic setting and shoot at 1/500 sec at f5.6 and stop down to f8, my shutter speed drops to 1/250, and the same amount of light is hitting the sensor in both cases. It won't gather more light, like it looked like you said.

Stopping down aperature also increases depth of focus, so that tells me the background on your cardinal was quite a distance away from the bird, because even at an increased DOF, the background bokeh is buttery and smooth.

Again, maybe I misread that, and sorry if I did. Don't mean to offend.

[buzzsaw]

You were right on Steve...

Quote:

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Slower shutter speed and still sharp tells me your technique is good

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Thanks to the tripod.