Outdoors in the Land O'lakes - January 8, 2009

Feeding Winter birds

by Lorraine Julien

As winter is now really settling in, getting colder and snowier by the day, please remember to feed our little feathered friends. Feeding birds can be as simple as throwing a few bread crusts or kitchen scraps on the snow or by sprinkling seeds on a bench or platform. If you want to feed birds on a regular basis though, you will need to protect the food from rain or snow and try to discourage visitors such as squirrels. It’s important to continue feeding through bad weather as many birds may have become dependent on the food supply. It is especially important after a snow storm or extreme cold spell.

By having a variety of foods available, you can probably attract many types of birds to your lunch counter. For instance, chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers and blue jays especially like suet or fat, and sunflower seeds. We were even lucky this past week to have a visit by a couple of pine grosbeaks. Some suggestions for bird food are:

Sunflower seeds - a really versatile food enjoyed by many birds. Two kinds of sunflower seeds are available – a larger striped kind and a smaller black oiled seed. Most birds seem to prefer the black seeds.
Niger seed is excellent for attracting small finches, chickadees, redpolls and other small birds. Niger seems expensive but I find it lasts a long time in the finch feeder and the location of the feeder is inaccessible to squirrels.
Seed mixtures containing millet, cracked corn, oats, wheat, etc. are of little interest to a lot of birds and some of the mixture such as cracked corn may spoil if wet.
Suet cakes – these are my favourite because they require little work and are not too expensive. I’ve never tried it but you could make your own suet cakes by melting fat and then mixing it with seeds, bread crumbs, etc. Metal suet holders are available and it is difficult for squirrels to get at the suet.….. or you could use one of the wire devices that are made to keep leaves out of eavestrough downspouts or even a plastic mesh onion bag. Just fill with suet and hang from a fairly high tree branch. Suet should be hung as high as possible so that cats, dogs, etc. cannot reach them easily. I’ve noticed raccoons try to get our suet cakes whenever the weather is mild and they come out of hibernation for a while. When this happens, we bring the suet cakes in overnight.
Fat – if I have fat drained from cooking bacon or from hamburger, I let it solidify and then scrape it onto a tree trunk or the bird feeder cedar post. It’s okay to do this in winter, but I’d never try it any other time as you could attract unwanted predators such as bears!
Peanut butter – birds love peanut butter but some people say it should be mixed with fat to reduce any danger of choking.
Kitchen scraps tossed on the snow such as dry bread crusts, leftover whole grain cereal, apple cores, etc. disappear within minutes. Another treat quickly devoured by jays is peanuts in shells but these could be expensive so they only get the odd handful.

It can be fun to watch squirrels but they do waste a lot of food. One of our red squirrels eats at the feeder until he can’t eat anymore, then he stuffs sunflower seeds in his cheeks and buries the seeds in various places in the snow banks. Mr. Red Squirrel may remember the whereabouts of some of these caches but probably not. A big waste of seeds but the antics are fun to watch!

To limit cost at your feeder, just put out a certain amount of food each day, whatever you can afford. The main thing is to be consistent so don’t worry if the feeder is empty in a couple of hours. The birds will adjust their regular foraging and will be back the next day. I try to put out extra food just after snow storms though.

Sometimes birds fly into windows and injure themselves. You can discourage this by placing your feeder at least 25 to 30 feet from windows. Our main feeder is fairly close to the kitchen window but I have a mini blind that covers the window yet still allows us to observe the birds. Feeders that are fastened to or right against windows may be alright because the birds are moving too slowly to injure themselves if they happen to hit the glass.

Aside from discovering and identifying new birds, feeding the birds offers great opportunities for photographs. Another advantage in attracting more birds to your property is that many species eat dormant insects and eggs during the winter.

Keep your bird books and your camera handy because, especially at this time of the year, you never know who will be coming to dinner!

Please feel free to report any observations to Lorraine Julien at naturewatching@gmail.com or
Steve Blight at natureobservations@rogers.com