That’s some serious bird watching equipment you have. The two clear tube feeders are common. Took me a while to find the tail support woodpecker suet feeders. Do you like them?
That round green item with the cord hanging down looks like a Farm Innovators heated bird waterer. If so, does it work well?
The tall white one appears to be a Davis weatherman data feeder.
Paul
The tail support on the suet feeders does help woodpeckers (Hairy and Downy woodpeckers and Northern Flickers) take their natural position -- as if vertical on a tree trunk. Interestingly, similar size/shape birds, such as Stellar's Jays, don't use the tail support. Either they
can't figure out the advantage of it or their feet aren't structured for perching vertically -- they cling to the cage sideways, usually, and with surprising awkwardness. Little birds such as pygmy nuthatches and mountain chickadees use it, too -- with ease.
The flat, round green thing with the cord, mounted on the tree (Western Juniper) trunk,
is a Farm Innovators bird waterer. It works great, no ice forms down to single-digits (F), at least...thermostatically controlled to only turn on when temperatures require heat. But it catches a lot of debris from the messy juniper, so I have to clean that out every other day (or more frequently).
I used to have it standing (on little legs) on the deck, but deer would drink from it and drain it dry in just a couple visits. So...after mounting that bird waterer up on the tree trunk, out of the deer's reach, I bought a heated 3-gal bucket from Farm Innovators. However, it didn't work -- ice formed when the temperature was still in the upper 20s (F). I returned it and tried another slightly different model and got the same lack of liquidity.
So...I figured that at least a bucket could work for watering deer in the
non-freezing months of the year. Then I came out one morning and found a drowned chipmunk in the water bucket...and I decided that I didn't want to kill chipmunks for the sake of deer.
I should point out that my house is just 200 yards from the Deschutes River, so no creatures in my neighborhood NEED my offered water...it just makes them easier for me to watch.
Cooper's Hawk needs to tip it's head back to swallow water, but the squirrel, being a mammal, can drink upside down (like frat boys drinking beer). I've noticed that pygmy nuthatches -- birds who navigate tree trunks and branches without any particular orientation to gravity -- can drink kinda upside down, though they do still tilt their heads up a little to swallow.
The white thing on a pole is a weather station, but not a Davis...it's many years old -- don't remember the brand, bought from Ambient Weather.
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