What the Birds at Your Feeder Are Saying About You — 7 Calls I Learned in 30 Years At the Store

The yard goes dead quiet, every bird leaves the feeder in the same second, and your first thought is that something's wrong with the seed. It almost never is. There was a hawk on the fence. After 30 years running a wild bird store in Michigan, I'm sharing the 7 calls I learned to listen for at my counter, and what Cornell Lab and the researchers have figured out about each one. Your feeder birds are talking all day long, but they're hardly ever talking about you. And the one call that really is about you, I'm saving for last. In this video: 1. The seet: the thin, high alarm that makes the whole yard freeze 2. A hawk that isn't a hawk: the Blue Jay mimic 3. The cardinal's chip 4. The chick-a-dee-dee-dee: how chickadees count their dees 5. The Mourning Dove's wing whistle 6. The scold: bird mobbing and how a whole yard gangs up on a hawk or owl 7. The alarm that really is about you Along the way I cover how to read feeder bird behavior, what alarm calls mean, and what to do when a Cooper's Hawk visits your bird feeders. Tell me in the comments: which bird sounds the alarm first in your yard, and are you hearing Blue Jays or Steller's Jays? Count the dees on the first chickadee you hear this week and let me know the number. If you're the one in your family who notices when the birds go quiet, subscribe, so the day your yard goes still, you already know where to look. Your birds have been telling each other about that hawk on the fence all along, and now, when the yard goes quiet, you'll know to look up. #BackyardBirds #BirdCalls #BirdFeeders #BirdWatching