Although I'm probably more entrenched in the "casual birder" category now than I was in my youth, I have had an interest in birds since my childhood. I was a "country boy" trapped in the big city. I grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles and satisfied my nature bent by putting up bird feeders and keeping tropical fish. My dad had built my sister a playhouse, really quite a substantial construction, with a main floor and upstairs "attic". The upstairs was my hangout. It had a screened window on each end and I put up a tray feeder right outside the window. I could lay there, invisible to the birds behind the screen, and watch birds for hours, just a few inches away.
I had a book called "Hand Taming Wild Birds at the Feeder" by Alfred G. Martin. I ordered it from an advertisement on the back of a 5 lb. bag of birdseed (which sold for $0.49 as I recall). I read it cover-to-cover so many times I had portions memorized. It was my dream to hand tame birds like the author, but I was never successful with any but hummingbirds. Perhaps L.A. birds are more wary of humans than those in Great Pond, ME from where Mr. Martin hailed.
I do keep a seed feeder going year round and put up 14 hummingbird feeders from March to October. At peak season, I go through a gallon and a half of nectar per day. I was intrigued jjohnwm by your feeding vultures, hawks, shrikes, etc. In my book, that's going all out! I've always been too lazy even to try to attract insect and fruit eaters with mealworms, oranges, jelly and the like.
Got to share this story. When my girls were very young, we caught a mouse in a live trap in the house. I was going to feed it to my snake, but the girls wouldn't hear of it saying it had "such cute eyes". So we loaded into the car and drove a mile or so from the house to give the "cute" mouse its freedom. The girls crowded close as I lifted the trap door and let the mouse out. They were delighted to see it bound away heading for cover. As we turned to get back in the car, I caught a flash of motion behind us. Looking back I saw a Sparrow Hawk (American Kestrel) lighting on a nearby power line with our mouse in its talons, likely celebrating its good fortune to be in just the right place at just the right time. I hustled the girls into the car and home we went, they never knew the rest of the story.
en.m.wikipedia.org
