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Winter Bird Feeding
Roll out the winter welcome mat and cater to your feathered friends. They make entertaining guests -- without remains of dirty dishes or extra laundry.
Birdbath
Turn your backyard birdbath into a bountiful feast. Fly-bys will flock to eat and they'll be sure to linger.
Keep the birdbath filled this winter. Stock it with wild birdseed mix, seed corn-on-the-cob chunks, rosehips, dried sunflowers, and branches of bittersweet. Or stock it with water; tuck in a birdbath heater, and provide birds with an unfrozen drink that's essential to their survival.
Details:
If you choose to use your birdbath for its traditional purpose during winter, rather than turning it into a feeder, it's easy enough to feed birds. Use a platform-type feeder to offer mixed seed for a variety of feathered friends, including finches, cardinals, jays, grosbeaks, and doves.
Suet Cakes
Hang suet (beef fat) from tree branches by packing it into a wire suet basket or a mesh onion bag.
This high-energy food attracts woodpeckers, nuthatches, thrushes, titmice, and other birds.
Details:
Make seedy suet cakes easily and economically. Just combine one part peanut butter, two parts birdseed, and five parts cornmeal to each part melted beef suet (available in the meat section of your grocery store). Press the mixture into muffin tins. Let harden. Drop a suet cake into a net bag and hang from a tree branch.
Plan Ahead: Plant for Birds
Turn your yard into a wildlife sanctuary by planting shrubs and trees that will be sure to welcome the birds.
Come spring, plant a variety of trees and shrubs that attract birds, not only giving them valuable food sources but providing essential shelter during winter. Plant a variety of seed-, nut-, and berry-bearing trees and shrubs for the birds -- you'll enjoy these plants' year-round beauty.
Shrubs
barberry Berberis thunbergii
Thorny, deciduous shrubs with bright red berries in fall and winter. Some varieties have bronze or golden foliage.
bittersweet Celastrus scandens
A deciduous vine that can climb 20 feet or more. The tiny orange fruits split in fall to reveal scarlet seeds inside.
chokeberry Aronia arbutifolia
A deciduous shrub, it bears clusters of white flowers in spring, burgundy fruits in fall.
cotoneaster Cotoneaster species
This group includes both deciduous and broad-leaf evergreens. Most bear orange or red fruits in fall.
elderberry Sambucus species
Big, spreading shrubs bear showy, flat-topped clusters of white flowers followed by blue, red or purple berries. Deciduous.
holly Ilex species
Hollies can be evergreen or deciduous, trees or shrubs. Female plants bear red, yellow, or black berries, so long as a male pollinator is nearby.
pyracantha Pyracantha species
Thorny, broad-leaf evergreens with abundant red-orange fruits in fall and winter. Fragrant white flowers appear in spring.
rugosa rose Rosa rugosa
Deciduous, prickly, and super-hardy. The flowers are followed by seedy red fruits known as rose hips.
sumac Rhus species
Deciduous or evergreen shrubs that sucker to form colonies. Fruits appear in fall, often in showy clusters.
viburnum Viburnum trilobum
A big deciduous shrub, it is adorned with white flower clusters in spring, abundant red fruits in fall.
Virginia creeper Parthenocissus species
A vigorous deciduous vine that can climb 50 feet or more. Bluish-black berries in fall.
Trees
crabapple Malus species
Many varieties are available with white, pink, or red flowers. For the birds, choose a small-fruited variety.
cherry Prunus species
Showy flowers in spring are followed by small fruits that are often
inconspicuous. Many types are available.
dogwood Cornus species
Spring-blooming trees or shrubs. The fruits of many species are ornamental, especially those of eastern and kousa dogwoods.
hackberry Celtis occidentalis
A tall shade tree that tolerates difficult growing conditions. Bears fleshy seeds in fall.
hawthorne Crataegus species
Picturesque, multi-trunked trees with thorny limbs. Profuse red fruits follow white flowers.
locust Robinia species
The black locust and its relatives are large shade trees that bear beanlike seed pods. The pods persist into winter.
mountain ash Sorbus species
The berries, usually red or orange, ripen in late summer and fall. Not a good choice where summers are hot.
pear Pyrus communis
This group includes the culinary pear and its ornamental relatives, such as the ubiquitous 'Bradford.' All bloom in spring, fruit in summer.
Russian olive Elaeagnus angustifolia
The fruits appear in summer and resemble miniature olives. Intolerant of humid summers and mild winters.
Serviceberry Amelanchier species
Birds quickly strip these small, graceful trees of the early-summer fruits. White flowers in spring.
Delicious Hospitality
Attract birds and squirrels with a festive 'bird-day' cake.
Bird feeding -- one of Americans' favorite pastimes -- is as easy as hanging up a feeder and keeping it stocked year-round. But you don't even need a feeder to furnish sustenance for birds. Here's a creative and fun project for those who live in a snowy climate.
Project:
Shape a seed-laden snow cake in your yard and watch the feathered ones flock to it. Simply pack snow into graduated-size pans.
Unmold and stack the snow cake layers on a plate of plywood.
Decorate the frosty cake with millet seeds, black sunflower seeds, and cracked corn as well as candles (for dinner by candlelight).
Squirrels will join ground-feeding birds such as sparrows, juncos, and cardinals in feasting on the seed du jour.
If you live in a warm climate, just sprinkle the feed on a plywood plate (to protect it from ground moisture).
Weekend Project: Decorate a Tree for the Birds
A tree full of treats attracts winged ones and helps them survive winter.
Decorate a Tree
During winter, birds get by with a little help from their friends, if you
festoon a tree with tasty treats.
Enlist the kids to help with this fun and easy project, and then make it an annual ritual. You'll help the birds survive by setting out food for them. They'll reward you with their lively presence.
Trim an evergreen tree, if possible, to give birds shelter as well as
sustenance. Birds will savor any of the following edible ornaments. Follow our directions for making several simple treats, and then tie the bird-friendly decorations to tree branches using strands of raffia.
Delicious Decorating Ideas
Orange Cups: Cut oranges in half; scoop out fruit. Make a handle for each cup by poking a small hole, one half inch from the rim on opposite sides. Push one end of an 8-inch-long ribbon into each hole; secure with a knot. Fill cups with birdseed or suet cakes.
Bread Cookies: Using bread heels or day-old loaves, press a cookie cutter into a bread slice to make a fun shape. Make a hanger of raffia strung through a small hole in the cookie. Hang stale donuts, bagels, or rice cakes the same way.
Stuffed Pinecones: Melt 1 part peanut butter with 1 part lard (straight peanut butter is too hard for birds to swallow). Roll 2-inch-long (or larger) pinecones in this "frosting," and then roll in birdseed before the fat hardens. Set on a cookie sheet to dry. Tie a raffia or ribbon hanger to the top of each cone.
Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever remains to them? ~Rose F. Kennedy
Despite being a nine-inch-tall bird, the roadrunner can run as fast as a human sprinter.
