A tray feeder on a baffled pole in a backyard at sunrise, chickadee and cardinal feeding
Wendell’s Window

The handbook

Your feeder is full. Nothing is coming.

Forty years at one window taught me the six reasons why, and the fix for each one. Which seed is junk. Which feeder I’d never hang again. Why your neighbor’s yard is full while yours sits empty — and what to change this week.

Set my yard up — $15.99

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Cover of Forty Years at the Window
40Years at the window
70Pages, in large type
4Pages built to print

Who is telling you this

No lab coat. No store to sell you.

I’m Wendell. I have fed the birds on the same half acre for forty years, and that is the whole of my authority. I am not an ornithologist and I have never claimed to be.

What forty years at one window gets you is not expertise. It is a very long list of things that did not work. I have hung the wrong feeders, bought the bags with the ribbon on them, moved the pole when I should have left it alone, and stood at the glass in August convinced I had broken something. This book is what is left after all of that.

Every verdict in it comes with the reason it is true, so you can check it in your own yard rather than take my word for it. That is the whole deal.

Wendell at his kitchen table looking out the window into the yard

What is actually in it

Nine chapters. Every decision already made.

  1. The Six-Week Setup. What to do in week one — and why week two is when almost everybody quits, about two weeks before it would have worked.
  2. Seed, Settled. The red grain sitting in most cheap bags that goes straight to the dirt, and the two bags that replace everything else in the aisle.
  3. The Feeder Test. The one measurement that decides which birds can land at your feeder. It costs nothing, and nobody checks it.
  4. Placement. The distance band you must never hang a feeder in, and the ten-foot rule that fixes an empty yard in an afternoon.
  5. The Calendar. What changes each month — including the two weeks in spring the whole year turns on, and the month to change nothing at all.
  6. The Empty Yard. Six causes in order of likelihood. Work down the list and stop at the first one that fits. The last one is not your fault.
  7. The Squirrel Chapter. Forty years of losing, what never worked, and the one move that ends it.
  8. Water. The cheapest change in this book, with the largest effect, and almost nobody makes it.
  9. The Habits. Eight small things that keep it all running. None of them takes five minutes.

Ten diagrams throughout — drawn for this book, not stock. This is one of them, straight off the page:

WINDOW0–3 FT GOOD3–30 FT — AVOID(enough room to build up speed)30 FT+ GOODDEAD ZONEopen lawn — no cover,birds won't lingerFEEDER~10 ftcoverLAUNCH ZONEsquirrel / catoverhanging limb — count this one toobrush pileground station(millet, low tray)water(clear of dense cover)prevailingwindwindow distances to scale; the rest of the yard is notDIAGRAM 4.1 — The yard map
From Chapter Four — the yard map
A chickadee, cardinal and nuthatch feeding close up on an open tray feeder

Six weeks. One feeder, two bags of seed, and a dish of water.

The part you will actually use

Four pages I’d tear out and keep.

Each one is a single page, set in large type, built to be printed and stuck inside a cabinet door or folded into a coat pocket. If you never read another word of the book, these four pages have done the job.

The Store Checklist

Take it to the aisle. Two tests that rule out most of the shelf, and the three numbers nobody checks.

The Seed Chart

What is in the bag, who eats it, and what is filler you paid for.

The Feeding Year

Twelve months on one page. For the counter.

The Empty Feeder

Seven checks in the order to run them, from the most likely cause to the least.

The Store Checklist page
Store checklist
The Seed Chart page
Seed chart
The Feeding Year page
The feeding year
The Empty Feeder page
The empty feeder

Those are the actual pages, at actual size.

The arithmetic

You do not pay per pound of seed. You pay per pound that gets eaten.

Here is the sum nobody does standing in the aisle. Ingredients on a seed bag are listed by weight, so whatever is printed first is most of what is in there — and in most cheap bags that first word is milo, wheat or cracked corn.

The birds take out the sunflower and kick the rest into the dirt. So a bag that is half filler is not a cheap bag. It is a bag at roughly double its sticker price, plus a mess under the feeder that feeds things you did not invite.

THE DELUXE MIXsunflowermilocracked cornwheatwhat the birds actually ateon the groundONE BAG — BLACK OIL SUNFLOWERblack oil sunflowerwhat the birds actually ateYou pay for the bar. You feed the birds with the solid part.DIAGRAM 2.1 — What's actually in the bag
From Chapter Two — what you pay for against what gets eaten
A mix that is half filler~2× per pound eaten
One bag, plain black oil sunflower1×
Feeders bought on the seven checksBought once
The four printed pagesUsed every trip

No dollar figures, because seed prices differ by region and by year and anyone quoting you a national number is guessing. The ratio is the part that holds.

One wrong bag of seed costs about what this book costs. The difference is that you will buy the bag again next month, and next season, and the one after that. The book you buy once.

Two things to know before you buy

There are no brand names in this book.

Not one, anywhere, and that is on purpose. Brands change, get bought, get worse. What a bird needs from a feeder does not change at all. So instead of a product list that is stale in three years, you get checklists you can carry into any store — including stores that do not exist yet. It also means nobody paid for a single verdict in here.

And it is not an identification guide. There are excellent ones and this is not competing with them. This is the other half of the job: the decisions. What to buy, where to put it, what to do in March, and what to do when nothing comes.

Questions

Before you order

What am I actually getting?

A 70-page PDF, downloaded the moment you pay. Nine chapters, ten diagrams, and the four printable pages. Set in 14pt type throughout and designed to print at home in black and white.

Do I need to know anything already?

No. Chapter One assumes an empty yard and a person who has never hung a feeder. If you have been at this for years, start at Chapter Two and argue with me.

Is this the same as the videos?

No. The videos take one topic at a time and you cannot flip through them. This is the finished system, in order, with every verdict already made and the reasoning attached.

Will it work where I live?

The verdicts hold anywhere in the United States. Where a region genuinely changes the answer — milo west of the Mississippi, the calendar running early in the Gulf states and late in the North — the book says so, and tells you how to shift it for your own yard.

How soon will I see a difference?

Some of it, within days: a seed swap changes your crowd on the next fill. The full setup is a six-week process, which is exactly why Chapter One is built week by week — most people quit in week two, right before it works.

If it is not for you

Thirty days to change your mind.

Buy it, read it, print the four pages and take them to the store. If it turns out not to be what you wanted, ask for your money back within thirty days and you will get it. That is handled at checkout — you do not have to email me, and you do not have to explain yourself.

I would rather you had your $15.99 back than a book you did not want.

Forty years at the window, written down.

$15.99

One payment. No subscription, no upsell, nothing else to buy.
Thirty-day money-back guarantee.

Set my yard up

Not ready to buy

Then take one page, free.

The Store Checklist is the page I would hand you first. Two tests that rule out most of the shelf, the three numbers nobody ever checks, and the whole shopping list for a working yard — on one printable page in large type.

It is not a sample or a teaser. It is the actual page out of the book, and it is yours for an email address. Print it, fold it into your coat pocket, and stop guessing in the aisle.

Send me the checklist — free

The Store Checklist page
Forty Years at the Window — 70 pages, four printable sheets Get it — $15.99