I don’t have a bird calendar hanging in my kitchen this year, but we have been enjoying watching the birds at the feeders outside our kitchen window. We didn’t have a feeder when my husband brought home the first bag of bird seed, so rather than buy a feeder I decided to make suet cakes. We had a lot of tallow in the freezer that would be perfect for this project. Since we purchase our beef in bulk, ordering 1/4 cow from a local farmer, we always get the suet (fat from around the kidneys and loins of the cow). Long time readers might remember this post when I explained the process of rendering suet into tallow. Even though they are called suet cakes, technically, they are made with tallow (rendered suet).

To make the suet blocks I melted the tallow, about 6 cups then added about 2 cups oatmeal, 2 cups corn meal and 2 cups birdseed. I then poured it into freezer containers. I poured it about 1 1/2 inches deep because that is how thick I wanted my suet cakes. I then put the freezer containers in the freezer. Once the suet cakes were solid I took them out and used a sharp knife with a long narrow blade to drill a hole in the center of the cake. I then strung a ribbon through the hole and tied it at the top of the suet cake. I could now hang the suet cakes in a tree or on a shepherd’s hook for the birds to enjoy.

That is a suet cake hanging on the right-hand side of the shepherd’s hook in the picture below. My dad then gave us an extra feeder that he was not using so we hung that up as well.

These pictures were taken through my kitchen window so are not very clear.

Regular visitors to the feeder have been Tufted Titmice, Juncos, Black-capped Chickadees, and Sparrows. I did see a Harry Woodpecker a couple times and there is a squirrel who keeps steeling the suet cakes. I saw him (or her) the first couple of times eating from the suet cakes before they were knocked to the ground and disappeared, so it is safe to assume that the same thing happened to the last two suet cakes as well.

On Saturday a large flock of starlings visited. Mostly they sat in the maple trees (and pooped on my car) but a few did grab a snack from the bird feeder before they flew off the parts unknown. Since then, I have seen a few more starlings stop to eat.

Sunday afternoon my husband quietly called me over to look out the window. As I looked out, I saw a small hawk sitting in the arborvitae right next to the bird feeder. While I’m sure it was looking for a meal, it clearly had no interest in the bird seed. Thankfully all the little birds had disappeared, so the hawk had to look elsewhere for dinner. I do understand that hawks need to eat too, but I would prefer that they find field mice and other small rodents, and if they do have to eat a smaller bird I don’t want to see it.

Yesterday afternoon the feeder was visited by three Blue Jays and while most of the smaller birds cleared out while the Jays were there it was delightful to see.

At this point the only bird I am still hoping to see is a cardinal or two as we usually do see them in winter or spring.

Thanks for visiting.

Do you feed the birds?