Birds have gotta eat, and they have got the goods

About 20 years ago, Marcia Neiman found herself with an empty nest, but instead of brooding overlong she set about devoting her life to birds of a different feather. Her business, Wild Birds Unlimited, with three Middle Tennessee locations, sells seed, supplies and gifts, and offers expert advice for free, to those who love birds, those "ethereal minstrels...pilgrims of the sky."

Wild Birds specializes in birdseed and birdfeed - it carries bird chow in all size packages. Birds can be picky eaters, too, and if you've noticed that those in your yard are, well, eating like a bird, it could be because the food you've put out for them is full of wheat, oats, cereal and other insulting ingredients. Seed sold at Wild Birds is made from 100 percent edible and delectable seed, tailored to the taste buds of birds in the region.

Nesting season is upon us, the most important time of the year to feed birds. "Nature is depleted, and they need food now," Neiman says. Bluebirds and chickadees are two of the area's more plentiful species soon to be looking for a hand up, not a handout, to make it through the spring. Wild Birds is moving a lot of bluebird houses and poles, and bags upon bags of mealworms, a bluebird delicacy.

Neiman calls herself a bird feeder not a bird watcher, which made the Wild Birds franchise a natural for her. Wild Birds Unlimited ("Your Backyard Birdfeeding Specialist") has more than 300 stores across the U.S., serving the teeming flocks of feeders and watchers from coast to coast. (Bird watching and feeding is the country's second-most popular hobby, after gardening.) You can shop at Wild Birds for the functional (binoculars, birdbaths, feeders, houses, birdcalls, sundials and thermometers), the decorative (wind chimes, clocks, garden ornaments, globes, gourds, candles and flags), the informative (books, CDs and tapes), the commemorative (cups, coasters, plates and placemats), the rococo (heated birdbaths, bird gazebos and bird hotels), and those items that are pure flights of fancy (team-logo birdhouses, and the electronic bird song dictionary). And you can get advice about the best feeder to buy and the best food to put out to attract the best birds to your paradise.

Neiman moved to Nashville from Chicago with her husband in the late 1980s. With the kids away at school and being at loose ends, she started looking into the Wild Birds opportunity, and decided it could be unlimited. Her first store took wing in 1989, on Bransford Avenue in Nashville, and when her daughter, Pam, got out of college and came home to roost, she opened a second, in 1994, in Goodlettsville, which Pam owns and runs as a partner. And five or six years later she opened her third, in Franklin, also in partnership with Pam. (Her son, Brian, owns a store in Chicago.)

Diana Tennison is manager of the Bransford Avenue store. She got hooked on birds ten years ago, when she bought a house and found a couple of feeders left behind by the previous owners. She put out some seed, and the birds beat a path to her door.

Tennison spends a good part of each day chatting with and consulting the bird enthusiasts who beat a path to the store. Her customers aren't rare birds, by any means, just regular folks with a passion for birds and the good-hearted impulse to do what they can for our fine, feathered friends.

"People who come to our stores are from every walk of life; they range from kids to those in their 90s," says Neiman, who's always loved birds but who doesn't style herself an expert. ("If I don't know their names, I don't worry about it," she says.) "Coyote McCloud feeds birds. Wynonna Judd is a customer."

Feeding birds isn't complicated - all you need is a good spot for a feeder, a good window and a good pot of coffee, Neiman says - and its rewards are many, including, apparently, a good disposition.

"The nice thing about this business," Neiman says, "is that we rarely get anyone in who's sour. People who feed birds are giving back to the world. They're not taking it for granted. They're the best class of people."

Wild Birds Unlimited has three locations in Middle Tennessee: 2813 Bransford Ave. in Nashville (Hours 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Sat. and 1-4 p.m. Sun.; 615-385-2426); 806 Meadow Lark Lane (where else?) in Goodlettsville (10 a.m.-6 p.m. M-F, 9-5 Sat. and 1-4 Sun.; 615-859-7597); and 2176 Hillsboro Road Suite 110 (Battlefield Shopping Center) in Franklin (same hours as Goodlettsville store; 615-591-6962). Visit www.wbu.com and search for individual stores.