Coffee mugs are filled. The curtain in front of the sliding glass doors is open. Bring on the birds! Oh oh some of the bird feeders are not completely full. It seems that the Pine Siskins and Lesser Goldfinches have about emptied the thistle feeders. The quail have very little bird seed in either platform bird feeder. The tube bird feeder is only about half full.
I look at Tom and he gives me a pained look. We had talked about it being time to clean all of the bird feeders. With most of the feeders close to empty today is the day.
It really is not that big of job. The oriole feeder and one platform are made out of recycled material so we simply brush all loose material off, spray them down with a mild bleach solution, rinse with the hose and wait for them to dry before we refill them.
The tube bird feeder had a bottom that comes off. Again just take the feeder apart, spray with the bleach solution, rinse with the hose and let dry.
The cedar platform feeder takes a little more time, The perforated bottom comes out so that gets the usual spray, but the cedar had to be brushed with a soft wire brush to remove the bird waste.
Our hummingbird feeders get changed about every three days, so we can skip them today.
Cleaning bird feeders may not be the most fun part of feeding birds, but it is a very important one. Cleaning all of these different bird feeders only took about a half an hour. Cleanliness is important even to birds. After all would you rather eat at a nice clean restaurant or one that might not have such high standards?
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