In the Pacific Northwest our normal climate includes a summer drought, months of little significant rainfall from June into October. That soggy rainy image you may have of this region is seasonal, with the vast majority falling in winter-spring. With climate change that interval has been expanding, starting earlier in summer, even in spring. The effect of this is that puddles, wetlands and seasonal creeks dry up come summer, and birds are stressed searching for adequate safe water for their drinking and bathing.
It’s a real kindness to set up birdbaths or fountains for them to use during this season. It also draws in birds to your yard you might not see otherwise. Win win!
A major treatise and/or photodiary could be presented on this topic but I’m not going to take that on. I’ll just show you what I have set up, and perhaps other folks could build on that. I certainly hope you birders out there will pitch in with your examples and insights.
I have 2 simple birdbaths and 1 fountain birdbath. The simple birdbaths are a shallow one on the railing 6 feet outside my kitchen window and a bigger deeper one out in the backyard surrounded by my fruit trees.
The shallow birdbath is a ceramic piece made by a friend. I bring it in every fall so it doesn’t crack and break when freezing weather comes. This birdbath is all one piece, with a hollow pedestal; I have a metal pipe bolted to the railing it fits over so it won’t fall over. It gets used by the smaller birds mostly, like finches, chickadees, sparrows, nuthatches, wrens, and such, but also occasionally by bigger birds. I get lots of opportunity to see the activity there.
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The larger birdbath is also ceramic, which I picked up at a big grocery store on the mainland. I’ve gotten three from there with pretty glaze colors but the top bowl section of two have broken, by freezing/cracking and by getting knocked over by raccoons. The raccoons I can’t do anything about (they need water in summer too) but staying on top of the weather goes a long way toward saving your ceramic birdbaths (now I have two pedestals I could do something with — right now one has nice driftwood sticks on which nasturtiums are growing). The large birdbath is used by bigger birds like robins and their thrush cousins, towhees, woodpeckers and others. I don’t see the action in this birdbath much because it’s hidden by trees but it definitely gets used since the water goes away and gets dirty.
In high summer with heavy use I clean and refill the birdbaths every day or two. As with birdfeeders, dirt and bacteria can spread disease, and that kind of defeats the point of providing help to birds. In fact dirty feeders and baths will become baited danger to them. Cleaning birdbaths is easy: scrub with anything to loosen gunk (leaves work) then spray with a hose or dump a jug of clean water.
My fountain birdbath is new this summer. I was inspired to set it up after being spellbound by the mass of warblers congregating at a neighbor’s fountain last year. I rarely see warblers in my yard. My garden helper and I set up the fountain in a shady spot under my fig tree.
I got the general idea by looking at various YouTube videos. We used concrete blocks for a pedestal, a big heavy duty ceramic pot someone gave me on top, my old satellite dish, a netted pump in a plastic tub, plastic tubing and a bunch of rocks. The power cord runs to an outdoor outlet by the garage 15’ away. I’ve done some fine tuning and will continue to, but so far it’s working pretty well.
The setup:
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First iteration. July:
One issue with a fountain like this is how to keep it clean, since it’s not so easy to dump out and scrub as the simple birdbaths. So far I’ve (“ “, my helper, lol) drained and scrubbed it once. Since I discovered rough stones grow algae quickly I switched them out for smoother ones. Also I cut down the tub so the netting could go around the whole thing rather than the pump alone since the netting against the intake got fouled too easily. The hose had to be curved downward far enough to avoid splashing, otherwise the water level goes down too quickly, which would cause two problems: 1) no pooled water for birdies and 2) the pump could run dry.
Second iteration. August:
As a way to keep the fountain clean between draining/scrubbing/refilling, I’m adding an enzyme-based solution to decompose organic material and a little hydrogen peroxide to knock back algae, both of which I’ve read are harmless to birds (and fish, but not pond plants). Anybody had any experience with ways to keep fountains clean without dumping them out every couple of days?
The birds use the fig tree and other nearby trees as a staging area to access the fountain and I’ve also planted some evergreen shrubs around it (rock rose, evergreen huckleberry, viburnum) which I’m envisioning will grow up and together hiding the concrete blocks.
One last incident to include in my report. My 94-year-old mom came up to visit a few days ago, first time in years. She’s not as mobile as she used to be physically but she’s just as interested in things, including nature, as she ever was, and as sharp as a tack. We were standing around the new fountain and I was explaining about it, when suddenly who should hop out of a tree onto the rim of the fountain? A Wilson’s warbler! I’d seen a couple of them recently, attracted by the fountain, first time ever in my yard! but hadn’t gotten a close look yet. This fellow cheeped a few times, looked at us and then darted back up into the tree. No photo of Mr Wilson’s, since I was in visiting not photo-mode at the moment, but we both saw him. A magical moment for sure!
Birdbaths are a delightful addition to our yards in many ways. Any experiences or suggestions to add to the discussion today?
Dawn Chorus is now open for your birdy observations of the week.
Monday, Aug 12, 2019 · 4:02:28 PM +00:00 · OceanDiver
Comment from G2geek deserves attention:
Thanks for mentioning changing the water & cleaning the birdbaths every couple of days. Essential not only for keeping the water safe for the birds, but also for preventing mosquitoes breeding in the birdbaths.
Mosquitoes carry deadly diseases in every region of the US, with more on the way as a result of climate change. We all need to be on the alert for any source of standing water around our homes, in our yards, and on the streets out in front. Even a discarded bottle cap full of water is enough to produce a crop of mosquitoes in a matter of a few days. So changing the water in birdbaths every couple of days is an important step to prevent mosquitoes and disease outbreaks.