Pasta

This bird food was another compost pile revelation. Our kids love spaghetti with butter (no sauce, please) so we fix boatloads of it. When we cant reheat it even one more time, the leftover pasta goes on the compost pile where the birds enjoy it al fresco. Weve had a brown thrasher, blue jays, and titmice so into the pasta that youd think they were extras on The Sopranos. Then theres our macaroni-and-cheese-loving red-bellied woodpecker. Offering pasta, like a lot of these weird foods, is best done in dry weather. We cut down on the compost pile feeding in mid-winter when were beset by 40 to 100 starlings. Even so, its nice to see our leftovers consumed by something other than our pesky raccoons.