Going for a Song

Cheap and easy ways to go native

By Christina George • Photos by Jennifer Kettler

“Bird Man” Mel Toellner hosted a CH&L decorating class April 30 at his store, Songbird Station. The theme was “The backyard … your summer living room,” and the session delivered far more than the title promised. Toellner is a sharp businessman and an engaging and informative speaker. He began by stating our goal for the evening: thinking of the yard as part of your home and finding ways to encourage songbirds and butterflies to take up residence. 

Toellner also introduced store manager Holly Seaver and two other employees, Gerrie Foudree and Sally Mayo. All of Songbird Station’s employees are knowledgeable and active in the events hosted by the store. For instance, the store hosts a bird walk once a month. The walks and seminars are free, and a recent seminar on bluebirds attracted 130 people. 

The first topic of the evening was a surprise: yard certification by the National Wildlife Federation’s Certified Wildlife Habitat program (see sidebar for details). Following these guidelines will ensure you provide a habitat conducive to birds and butterflies. Native plants grown in central Missouri attract bugs. These are “good” bugs — spiders and fruit flies — that are sources of protein for butterflies and hummingbirds. To grow fruit flies, die-hard birders put fruit plates out: banana peels, fleshy fruit, such as watermelon, or anything just past its prime are perfect meals for fruit flies. Another tip for attracting butterflies is to create a warming area: Start with black plastic. Place a flat white rock to hold heat on top of it, and then sprinkle heavily with a mix of sand and coarse salt for the butterflies whose metabolisms require a lot of salt. (The plastic keeps the salt from leaching into the yard.) 

Hummingbirds were the next topic. If a person had a hummingbird’s metabolism, he or she could eat 260 Big Macs a day. “Wouldn’t that be cool?” Toellner beamed. One of the most important facts to remember about hummingbirds, however, is that “cleanliness is next to Godliness. Keep your feeders clean.” Because hummingbirds can fly in any direction, they must maintain their finely tuned navigation systems. A clean feeder ensures that hummingbirds are receiving wholesome nutrients to help them straighten up and fly right. 

Many of Toellner’s products have been designed because of customer feedback. For instance, a small cleaning brush for a hummingbird feeder can be difficult to maneuver for an older person with arthritis, so he extended the length of the handle after customer requests. “I’m not that smart; I just listen real good,” he insisted. Toellner was careful not to make too many product plugs, but he did say that if you don’t buy your products from Songbird Station, “all the birds in your yard will die.” He paused and grinned. “Just kidding.” 

One of Songbird Essential’s products is special cotton with a high percentage of oil that comes in a hanging tray. Hummingbirds (and Baltimore orioles) like to line their nests with this cotton. The oil ensures that water is not absorbed into the nest. Providing this material is an inexpensive way to increase the odds of having nesting hummingbirds in your yard. Don’t provide dryer lint as a nesting material because it absorbs water. The nests need to be dry and free of mold and mildew. Providing a source of misting water helps, too, as the hummingbirds use it as a shower to remove pollen from their feathers.  You can place hummingbird feeders anywhere, and placing them close to the house is fine. 

Toellner asked if we had any favorite birds. “Bluebirds” was the immediate response.  The state bird of Missouri is the Eastern Bluebird, and bluebirds like to be out in the open. His best advice? Put up houses for them, no less than 100 yards apart, with an opening of no more than an inch and a half. A raised floor is helpful for drainage. He finds that it’s nice to have houses you can peek into without disturbing the birds. Songbird Station has a model with a plexiglass side so children (and adults) can view the nesting babies. He also urged us to keep water out for bluebirds. Heated water baths in the winter are important, so bluebirds can fluff their feathers to keep warm. Bluebirds don’t migrate. In the winter, one of their primary foods is bittersweet, which ripens in late January, early February. This led him to an admonishment: Don’t quit feeding in spring. All the migratory birds are arriving, and they need food for their new babies. The next seed crop won’t be available until fall. 

And then came the disturbing portion of the program: sparrows. Toellner cheerfully and vehemently encouraged us to trap or kill sparrows. Why? They will kill bluebirds and build their nests on top of them. According to Toellner, there are two birds in America you can dispense with: sparrows and English starlings. They are not native and not protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. A homesick Englishman released these birds in Central Park in the 1860s, and the effect on native birds is extremely negative. “Your yard just explodes when you get rid of the sparrows,” Toellner notes. Don’t feed millet and corn to your backyard birds, as it will attract sparrows. “Good” (i.e., native) birds like sunflower seeds, according to Toellner. “I can’t whack them with a bat, what do I do?” class member Melody Bezenek asked. Toellner suggested that she trap them and release them far away in the yard of someone she doesn’t like, or he could personally come over and do the job with bird shot.  

We then moved on to a pest Toellner is more tolerant of: “My friends the squirrels!” He suggests safflower seed as feed because squirrels don’t like it. He also showed us a variety of feeders that have cages around them to keep out blackbirds and squirrels as well as a feeder with doors that automatically shut when a creature as heavy as a squirrel tries to sit on it. Songbird Station carries a number of squirrel devices: a “twirl a squirrel,” which uses centrifugal force to fling a squirrel off a feeder (it sounds mean, but it’s very funny to watch) and a squirrel bungee cord (a “squngee”) festooned with ears of dried corn to distract squirrels from birdfeeders and entertain the kids and cats. 

Melody Bezenek asked another interesting question: how do you attract bees to your yard? Toellner told us about a simple device that consists of a block of wood with holes in it, which bees use as a habitat. One of their natural habitats is cavities of dead trees, but the number of old dead trees is decreasing, so the bees need alternatives. The rest of the class wondered how to avoid bees. That can be a challenge, particularly if you have hummingbird feeders. One trick is to rub Avon’s Skin So Soft directly on the feeder to discourage bees. (Skin So Soft contains a natural insecticide made from African violets.) Also, a hummingbird feeder with the correct structure will have a long tube so that the hummingbird can access it with their long tongues, but bees with their short stingers can’t. Bees aren’t as smart as birds. Move the feeders periodically, so the bees can’t find them right away. And clean the feeders. Bees mark their spots, and it throws them off if they can’t find that marked spot. 

The subject of bees made him stop and consider the larger implications of what he was talking about: “One thing I neglected to say that I really should have: If you want to see your yard explode, forget pesticides. In particular, butterflies will tell you what you’re doing. The Amish call birds and butterflies the barometers of the environment, and I think they know more than we know sometimes about that. If the birds are doing good and the butterflies, we’re doing okay, but when you start seeing those diminish, that particular part of the environment has some challenges.”

Besenek, who was clearly an avid naturalist, asked, “My mother likes wrens, what do I buy her for Mother’s Day?” Toellner replied with a grin, “A wren house.” Wrens eat insects, so there’s no way to feed them directly, and they are territorial. Don’t put bluebird and wren houses together or the wrens will fill the bluebird houses with sticks. And space wren houses out — no more than one in each section of the yard (front, back, sides). An opening in a wren house should be no bigger than a quarter so that larger birds can’t move in. 

And then some final words of advice to make your yard bird-friendly, Toellner remarked: “I have 20 some feeders and dogs. The birds say it’s worth the risk.” To minimize the risk, don’t hang feeders less than four feet high, as any lower is an easy jump for cats. Toellner said cats kill more songbirds than anything in the world. Hang birdhouses in trees, not on poles. “It’s about developing the environment,” he said. Clean out the birdhouses, so the birds stay safe. Houses with lots of junk built up in them may mean that predators can reach in and grab the bird. 

“Water is cheapest and No. 1 thing you can do to attract all kind of birds,” he said. Keep in mind that with birdbaths, you need to provide shallow water for little birds. Make the water move to attract birds and discourage breeding mosquitoes. Songbird Station sells an inexpensive device that moves the water, or you can simply rinse out the bird baths each time you water your garden plants. 

Birdfeeders come in all shapes and sizes, and you can choose whatever you like. Hopper feeders are the most general. The Bird Man’s favorite feeder has spaces for seed, suet (you can get suet from the butcher) and fruit. Orioles love oranges (cut the orange in half, and present it fleshy side out). Robins and woodpeckers will eat apples. Cardinals like ground trays. Make sure the feeder is easy to fill and clean. It may not be a big deal when it’s warm, but you’ll find it to be important in the bitter cold. And when in doubt, feed the birds black hull sunflower seeds. 

Toellner beamed at the class once again. “You guys did good. You led me through about all of it!” Reflecting on why birds are such an important part of his life, he said: “There’s a moment when I wake up and look out, and it’s all OK. … You go out and listen to the birds, and it’s just cool. … It beats the best rock station I know.” 

To create a Certified Wildlife Habitat, the homeowner needs to provide some elements from each of the following areas: 

Food sources (native plants, seeds, fruits, nuts, berries, nectar)

Water sources (birdbath, pond, water garden, stream)

Places for cover (thicket, rockpile, birdhouse)

Place to raise young (dense shrubs, vegetation, nesting box, pond)

Sustainable gardening (mulch, compost, rain garden, chemical-free fertilizer)

For more information, email info@nwf.org or call 800-822-9919.

Toellner began his business 13 years ago when he and his wife and children became interested in Missouri birds as a family activity. The business has expanded to fill a 70,000-square-foot warehouse in Mexico, Mo., home of Songbird Essentials. The company sells its products to 2,500 bird stores and is the biggest supplier of bird products in the world. Songbird Essentials stocks 7,000 products from 197 different suppliers, including their own brand, Songbird Essentials.  Ninety percent of the Songbird Essentials line is made in Missouri, with many of the products manufactured in sheltered workshops. Toellner believes maintaining his own brand creates job security for his employees. He was also frustrated over “junked up” products he discovered on the market and felt that creating his own product line was the best way to maintain quality. If a U.S. consumer buys a bird-related product online, six out of 10 times that product will be shipped from Toellner’s warehouse in Mexico. Toellner added that his location in the middle of the country helps, but it wasn’t a heavily researched business decision: “Mama just had me here. I was just lucky.”  

But his passion is not just making money. The company works with Columbia Second Chance, provides supplies to Columbia Audubon, donates to the Missouri Prairie Association and maintains 100 bluebird houses on trails between Columbia and Mexico. His emphasis is on quality and providing jobs to mid-Missourians, but his enthusiasm and appreciation for the natural world are clearly driving forces as well. In Toellner’s words: “We’re proud to be locally owned. We’ve been here, and we plan to be here.”

Songbird Station recently moved from its original location in the Forum Shopping Center. Now located at Chapel Plaza Court, the much-expanded store includes not only products for birds but also for squirrels and domestic pets as well as furniture, native plants, decorative items and a line of free-trade accessories, including handbags and necklaces.