Blue Ridge Foothills Bird Feeder

A woodland feeding station

This live wildlife camera from Eastern Backwoods Outdoors looks along a weathered wooden post into a broad platform tray filled with sunflower seed. Two caged tube feeders hang on either side, a mesh seed sock dangles from the post and more cage feeders stand further back among the trees, so the station serves both perching songbirds and ground feeders.

Regular visitors

The feeders attract the familiar songbirds of the southern Appalachians: Northern Cardinals, Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, Blue Jays, nuthatches and several woodpecker species. Squirrels raid the tray whenever they can, and white-tailed deer wander across the open forest floor behind the post.

Blue Ridge foothills setting

The camera stands on private woodland near State Road in Surry County, where rolling hills climb toward the Blue Ridge Mountains. A mature deciduous hardwood forest of tall, straight trunks surrounds the clearing, its floor carpeted with fallen leaves, giving the feeder a secluded backwoods character.

Sounds of the forest

The stream carries the natural ambient sound of the woods, from birdsong to the rustle of leaves, and a burned-in date and time in the corner shows the feed is live. The same operator streams other cameras from the property, including a deer feeder and a woodland creek.