When the Weather Outside Is Frightful
Wednesday December 17, 2008
Winter arrived with a vengeance yesterday, dumping several inches of snow during the day, naturally just after I’d refilled the birdfeeders. With such a deep snowfall, small birds such as juncos, sparrows and finches cannot reach the seed, and sympathetic birders should take care to clear perches and platforms to make feeding easier. I scooped away several handfuls of snow and stirred up the black oil sunflower seeds so they would be easily visible. In short order, I was rewarded with a very happy flock.What steps do you take to ensure your backyard birds can feed in the winter? Share your tips in the comments!
Platform Feeding
Photo © Melissa Mayntz
Comments
Hey Melissa, funny you should be writing about the same thing I have on my mind these days. Please check out my blog with my bird table photo. I hope to add your blog to those I follow. I have my own bird feeding service and last week I left a hand broom at the Dental Office I service so in between my visits they can sweep off the snow as well. Good tip for readers, Melissa. Thanks. Marie
We don’t get any snow here in GA, but we do get freezing temps at night. In order to insure that the birds and other critters have water available on these cold mornings, I empty all the birdbaths after dark to prevent the water from freezing and in the morning all I have to do is add some warm water so they’ll have something to drink after a long, cold night.
What a timely article. This morning it was 6 outside. Just 6. Not including windchill!
While our seed is not covered, the suet is solid! and Ice so thick it will not melt for 2 days. What else can we do for our little friends?
Melissa, I enjoy your articles very much. Here in Upstate New York (Pittsford - a suburb of Rochester) we are frequently inundated with snow. That is true at this moment. My “Droll Yankees YCPT360 Yankee Tipper Squirrel-Proof Bird Feeder” is a favorite of our local birds: e.g., house finches,juncoes, titmice, nuthatches, cardinals, blue jays, and chickadees. It is also my favorite feeder since once filled with black-oil sunflower seed, refilling is not required for at least a few days. There are three suet cakes in separate cages hanging from the feeder. They are favorites of the red bellied woodpeckers, the hairy woodpeckers, and the downy woodpeckers. I have yet to see a red-headed woodpecker. I moved the feeder to the front yard in order to avoid the damage being done to it by deer, turkeys, raccoons, and frustrated squirrels. Now I can view the feeder whenever I am in the family room. Feeders are for ready and frequent viewing. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
I have a waterfall with a heater, so birds always have fresh running water.
Hi all,
Just this am I was shoveling pathways to my feeders and heated bath. I usually knock the snow off my feeders and let seed drop to the ground (shoveled ground) for the ground feeding birds. And I remove the ring of snow away from the edges of my heated bath so the birds have a nice spot to land. My favorite cold weather feeder is a metal hopper that holds about 5 lbs. of seed. It has an overhanging roof to keep the seed dry and once I fill it I am set for a week or more. I also use a large dome baffle over my tube feeders to help keep the ice, rain and snow off.
This morning when I finally rolled out of bed, it was 13 degrees here on the West Virginia-Ohio border. No snow, not yet anyway.
I keep two suet feeders attached to a wooden fence just outsie my window, and all day long they have been visited by woodpeckers. BTW, earlier this summer, I ditched the chains on the suet feeders, and attached them directly to the wooden fence, each with two 2″ metal mending plates and screws. The woodpeckers and even the small birds seem to prefer something solid to grasp onto, rather than a suet feeder dangling from a flimsy chain.
But I do have to keep the suet feeders wired shut with a bread-wrapper twistee, because a raccoon friend figured out how to open them. I thought it was the squirrels, until one night I looked out the window and saw a raccoon sitting on the fence, methodically prying a suet feeder open, and then gorging itself.
I also keep two saucers of wildbird seed out, one on the ground (which the mourning doves prefer) and one in an 8″ round metal flower pot-holder attached to the fence (which the smaller birds prefer). I have an extra-wide roof over-hang, so both those two saucers of seeds always stay dry.
In a third saucer in a round flower pot-holder attached to the fence, I keep filled with shelled peanuts, mostly for the squirrels and the racoon.
And for a little varity, in another saucer attached to the fence with a round flower pot-holder, I keep filled with fruit, which freezes solid in the winter-time. It doesn’t get many takers, even during the summer, but just a few nibblers on ocassion. I’ve tried all different kinds of fresh fruit (oranges, bananas, apples, etc.), but they seem to prefer the seeds.
For a while I kept another saucer attached to the fence filled with fresh water. But with Ohio River just a quarter mile away, the birds never touched it. So now I keep that saucer filled with food instead, which the birds seem to prefer.
Two hanging feeders filled with wildbird seed and one with thistle seed, both under the roof eve and mostly always dry, are like Grand Central Station all day long. Even on a cold winter day like today.
The woodpeckers devour the suet daily, but ocassionally they will eat seeds too. They could more easily get seeds from the saucers, since they are too big to fit on the hanging feeder perches. But when they get hungry for seeds, they prefer to hang upside down from the hanging feeder perch, then reach up for seeds. To watch them do it, is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen!
There is never a dull minute outside my window, even on a cold winter day like today. My elderly next-door neighbor told me that she no longer watches television during the daytime, but prefers to sit at her window and watch the birds and squirrels at my feeders. That really made my day!
I’m near the MD/PA line north of Baltimore. We get a lot of freezing rain and a little snow..usually
In addition to the hopper feeder and mesh sunflower feeders, I keep a platform feeder under the picnic table on my second story deck. It backs right up to the woods, so I have lots of birds and squirrels. The table shelters the seed from the elements and gives some cover from the hawks. Sometimes I get really lucky and catch a glimpse of a flying squirrel having a late night meal.
Greetings. Living here in Washington state requires the same attention to birds as living in Minnesota. This year I broke down and bought two defrosters from Foster/Smith. They only come on when the temp is 30 degrees and less. Works like a charm. The water is not warm but it is fluid. Well worth the small amount of price I paid…