I feed wild birds in winter. A lot.

I am a bird watcher.

We have a lot of snow this winter. It’s like a winter of my youth when we had huge piles of snow, tall snowbanks, and really cold weather. While birds seem to survive somehow under these conditions, I like to help them out a little with food.

What kinds of Food?

Avoid buying the cheaper bird feed mixes. Those usually have a lot of “fillers”, the stuff no bird wants to eat. It ends up on the ground. The best feed is black oil sunflower seeds. Most birds, including woodpeckers will eat sunflower seeds. I also make my own suet cakes.

I don’t stop there, however. I also have fruit and nut mix or a woodpecker mix on hand. The nuts in these types of mixes contain high-energy oils, which chickadees, woodpeckers, nuthatches, and tufted titmice love.

Lastly, I have logs with holes that I fill with chunky peanut butter. If I can find any, I will hang chunks of beef suet. Again, the fat and protein content of the peanut butter and suet help the birds survive cold and wind. In winter, birds can eat 35% or more of their body weight daily. This food is necessary to generate body heat and stay warm overnight. According to Wild Birds Unlimited, a tiny bird can lose 70% of its fat reserves overnight. I fill the feeders around mid-day, so there is plenty for birds to eat in the afternoon and evening before it gets dark. You’ve probably noticed that birds eat first thing in the morning and late in the day.

Image if your eating increased by 20 or 30 times the normal amount in winter! But chickadees and titmice easily do this to survive the cold and snow.

What kind of feeder?

I have 6 or 7 feeders stocked with seed at any given time, spread out in different locations around our property. Platform feeders, log feeders, hanging feeders, feeders on posts or in trees. I hang feeders on flower hooks & on the clothesline. Many of mine are homemade, but all kinds of feeders are available in stores or online.

Little birds can be afraid of larger bullies, like bluejays. Bluejays are related to crows; we have witnessed them attacking and eating smaller birds. It helps to have multiple feeders where the smaller species can eat peacefully. The yard also has plenty of bushes and trees for cover.

Another point—predators need to eat, too. Falcons and hawks do not come near feeders for the seeds; they come for the pigeons, doves, and smaller species of birds. Plenty of shrubbery and trees help protect smaller birds, but I don’t feel bad when a dove gets scooped up. The small falcons and a Cooper’s Hawk can be fascinating as they dive and swoop. I’ve seen them go right into a fir or pine tree trying to catch a bird. The predatory species are excellent hunters.

Lastly, don’t worry about food that gets spilled to the ground. Cardinals, doves, pigeons, juncos, and turkeys are ground feeders and will scavenge around cleaning up. So do the squirrels and, at night, deer.

I routinely have about 15 different species that come to feed. Cardinals are seldom; I wish they would come more often. I’d like a red-bellied woodpecker to show up (I had many of them in NJ). Same for more tufted titmice (I only have two these days). I once had redpolls show up from Canada and a Great Gray owl only once in a snowstorm. In a year with an irruption, lots of evening grosbeaks. Once in a blue moon, a Cedar Waxwing.

What species do you see? What bird is the rarest?