Winter is for the Birds!

Winter is an important time to maintain your feeding stations and birdbaths. Many species of birds have increased their winter survival rates by frequenting backyard feeders throughout the season.

Water In Winter
Benefits For Wild Birds

Providing fresh water for wild birds during the cold winter months offers birds a greater chance of survival. Bathing will help to improve the insulative capacities of their feathers. Eating and melting snow has a high metabolic cost for birds, drinking water will help reduce this metabolic expense. Heated birdbaths or adding a heating element to your current birdbath will keep water from freezing over. Learn more about providing for birds in the winter by reading Enjoying Bird Feeding More by Bird Watchers Digest.


High Energy Foods
Kernels, Nuggets & More

Winter is a great time to offer new foods to your backyard birds. Here are some great high energy foods for your birds to discover:
-- Sunflower Treat - Ingredients: Shelled sunflower kernels, In-shell sunflower seed. Offering sunflower seeds out of the shell, we call it Sunflower Treat, is a great way to help birds conserve energy. Not having a shell to remove means there will be less mess under the feeder, too!
-- Suet Nuggets - Ingredients: Rendered beef suet, peanuts, corn, oats. Available in 4 flavors: Berry, Bluebird, Orange and Peanut. Mix suet nuggets in with your current seed mix or offer alone. The birds will appreciate the boost in energy suet provides.
-- Insects and Worms - Birds will love the opportunity to feast on these in winter when live insects are scarce. Offer insects with these Insect Suet Cakes or Choice Insect Suet Logs. Mealworms come conveniently in a resealable bag or can and are best offered in their own feeder, mixed in seed or made available on the ground.

Find all of these great items and more at Wild Class Nature Center.

Thanks for reading!

Happy Birding...