The songbirds in my neighborhood have gone peanut-crazy. I even switched out some of my thistle and sunflower feeders to keep up with demand.
Many species are getting their youngsters addicted to the peanuts as well, and I can’t recall a more successful breeding season. I’ve seen a Hairy Woodpecker baby (a first ever) as well as youngsters from House Sparrows, Blue Jays, chickadees, House Finches, White-breasted Nuthatches, House Wrens and Downy Woodpeckers (pictured below):
Last winter I started putting out a little cup of in-the-shell peanuts for the Blue Jays. They’re so used to it now that they shriek and cause a ruckus whenever the cup is empty. Last week I decided to put shelled peanuts in the cup. Was that ever a hit.
Blue Jays have an expandable throat pouch that allows them to swallow and carry away many nuts at a time. They eat some of them but cache many of them for winter. Turns out they love the shelled peanuts even more than the in-the-shell ones because they can grab more of them per visit. But they had to act fast, because it wasn’t long before the other birds caught on.
There’s a chickadee pair that successfully reared 4 babies. The little ones love the peanut cup and take turns jumping into it to dig for their treasures. Mom prefers to get her peanuts from the hanging feeder instead.
I was amazed to see a pair of cardinals dig in. I didn’t know cardinals ate peanuts.
I wish I could’ve gotten a video of the White-breasted Nuthatch that scampered down the feeder pole and did a somersault into the cup the other evening. It was adorable.
I was refilling the cup so often that I decided to add a second one. And you know things have gotten completely out of hand when even a House Wren shows up to see what all the fuss is about (ignore the fishing line that I put up to deter the House Sparrows):
