Monday, January 05, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Bird lover plants seeds of friendship

Gardnerville man takes steps to make sure songbirds fed

Howard Godecke, 80, talks about his Seedsox enterprise he runs from his home in Gardnerville. Birds easily recognize the yellow feeders, the longtime bird lover says. Photo by CATHLEEN ALLISON/SPECIAL TO THE REVIEW-JOURNAL

GARDNERVILLE -- Howard Godecke has been an architect, a landscape designer and an owner of lumberyards, gravel pits and tree farms.

He has started and sold 17 businesses, earning several fortunes along the way.

But the one thing that has stuck with the Gardnerville man through decades of entrepreneurship is his love for birds.

Which is why at the age of 80, he's pursuing what he calls a "noble venture," a business called Seedsox that brings him into contact with other bird aficionados.

"It is one of life's little pleasures," Godecke said. "You are doing something wonderful for our environment, and it is a great deal of fun to watch the birds. They become an extension of your family."

Growing up on his parents' Carson Valley dairy farm in the 1930s, Godecke and his dog spent long summer days exploring the vast sagebrush-covered fields.

In their travels, they often paused to listen as goldfinches and bluebirds sang while eating seeds from the purple flower heads of thistles.

As the years went by, these birds dwindled in number, pushed aside by the more aggressive English starlings. Godecke was disturbed by the change. But he had no time for starlings. He left his scenic valley, 10 miles south of Carson City, for a career in business in California.

After retiring in the 1980s, Godecke returned to the Minden-Gardnerville area and began conducting experiments in his back yard to find out what seeds appealed to songbirds and how to keep those seeds away from the starlings. Twelve years ago, he began selling his Seedsox.

The Seedsox is a bright yellow mesh fabric bag that holds thistle seeds. Songbirds cling to the bag and pluck out single seeds through the small holes in the mesh fabric.

Starlings won't come near it.

"Starlings are not clinging birds because of their bulky, ungainly configuration," Godecke said. "They don't have the patience to attack one seed at a time. The Seedsox appeals only to a small variety of really beautiful birds that have wonderful songs."

He has sold about 280,000 Seedsox on the Internet and at garden centers. He has not grown rich from Seedsox, but the sale of every bag makes him happy.

Feeding birds in an open or platform container is not ideal, Godecke said. Too many birds will leave droppings. Often the droppings contain bacteria that can wipe out hundreds of birds.

He found this out firsthand, destroying a colony of local chickadees when he was experimenting with seeds and containers.

That songbirds should love thistle seeds was no surprise to Godecke, having witnessed them ravish the seeds as a child on the dairy farm. Thistles, however, are obnoxious weeds hated by Nevada farmers.

So he buys his seed from Ethiopia, paying $18,000 per truckload. Ethiopia, like Nevada, is an arid country with wide-open barren lands.

Before venturing into the bird seed business, Godecke's ventures were far removed from nature.

He invented and manufactured flooring material as well as equipment used for transporting people injured in airline crashes and other disasters.

"When I should have been sleeping at night, I was inventing something," he laughed. "Every business was designed to fill a need."

But while working, he would always return to his parents' dairy farm for vacations, and he lamented the loss of songbirds to the wicked starlings.

The Carson Valley had became thick with English starlings. Their origins in America can be traced back to a fan of William Shakespeare named Eugene Schiefflin. Schiefflin placed a couple of pairs of English starlings and English sparrows -- birds mentioned in Shakespeare plays -- in New York's Central Park in 1890. Within 50 years the starlings spread to the West and became one of the dominant birds in Nevada.

Shakespeare or no, Godecke maintains the English starling is a "dirty bird." He noted when Swedish biologist Carl Linneaus named organisms in the 1700s he gave the starling the scientific name "Sternus Vulgaris."

"Starlings are obnoxious birds, probably the worst birds encountered by man," Godecke said. "They will eat anything. They are greedy eaters and they leave behind messes. They eat the eggs of other birds and then leave their eggs in the nests for the other birds to hatch."

While his health remains good, Godecke has lost some of his eyesight and no longer drives.

Besides assisting songbirds, he also designed a 400-acre wildlife sanctuary in 1998 in the foothills near Lake Tahoe. Its wetlands host ducks, geese, muskrats, all types of waterfowl, deer, rabbits and many varieties of birds.

"I'm winding down a bit," Godecke said. "Next month I will be 81. All I want to do is something worthwhile and that is helping songbirds."

He spends his days taking orders and chatting with customers about birds.

"I talk to many, many nice people," Godecke said. "Mostly little old ladies. I love what I am doing because of my own childhood and the birds I loved. This is what I call a noble venture."