On a daily basis I receive a multitude of emails from customers. They ask about bird identification or just share with me what they are seeing in their yard. Here’s an email from earlier this week:

“Just want to check in about (what else?) birds.  Always, spring is so exciting for me to see the colorful birds new for the season, but this year takes the cake!  Never have we had such amazingly large numbers of buntings, western tanagers, summer tanagers, black-headed grosbeaks, brown-headed cowbirds, and so on, nor have they ever stuck around for so long!  I can’t tear myself away from the window - absolutely delightful! I can hardly keep the grape jelly and suet stocked.”

And another email: “Hi Eric, we are getting a number of wonderful birds, more than we have had before.  We have at least 8 Lazuli Buntings, 6 Green tailed Towhees, and 3-4 Lark Sparrows.  In general, are more people seeing more migratory birds this season?”

My answer to that question is a resounding, “Yes!”

Why has this year’s migration been so spectacular? There are probably a number of reasons, mostly related to weather and food availability. One thing to remember with migration is that no two years are the same. Things in nature are constantly changing and are heavily influenced by human activity.

For example, if you feed wild birds, you are far more likely to experience a flood of migratory birds in your yard. Most songbirds migrate at night. When they arrive at a new destination early in the morning, they need to rest and refuel before continuing their migration.

Bird feeding provides migrating birds with readily available food with minimal energy expenditure. What you feed can have a dramatic impact on the success of migratory birds. Providing them with the necessary protein and fat for their long journey is critical.

As the owner of a backyard wild bird store, I am proud of the wild bird feed products we sell in our store. In addition to selling nutritious suet, seed cakes, nectar and jelly, we sell bird seed blends that we mix weekly right here in Prescott.

Over a decade ago we decided to make our own customized bird seed blends based on the many different habitats that occur throughout the Arizona Central Highlands. When a customer comes to our store to buy bird seed for the first time, we ask, “Where do you live?”

A customer who lives in Timber Ridge is going to get different bird species than a customer living in Prescott Lakes. The same is true for someone living in Forest Trails compared to someone living in Prescott Valley or Chino Valley. Our specialized bird seed blends are habitat specific. Tell us where you live, and we’ll make a product recommendation on which seed blend would work best for your area.

There is science behind our seed blends, unlike box-store bird seed. If you buy bird seed at a national box store, whether you live in Florida, Ohio, Texas or Washington state, you are getting the same bag of bird seed. There is no customization based on where you live and what kinds of birds occur where you live. My definition for box-store bird seed is “generic bird seed.” It is full of filler ingredients such as corn, wheat, and milo.

Birds are picky. If you’ve bought box-store bird seed, you have undoubtedly witnessed the birds at your feeders kicking out all of the ingredients they don’t want to get to the select ingredients they are seeking. I invite you to check out our amazing bird seed blends and see the difference in the bird activity in your yard.

Until next week, Happy Birding!

Eric Moore is the owner of The Lookout, in Prescott, where you will find a Hallmark Gold Crown Store, wild bird products, and Swarovski and Vortex optics. Eric has been an avid birder for over 55 years. Eric can be contacted at eric@thelookoutaz.com