How To Best Feed Birds In Winter - Helping Birds Survive Winter!

Welcome to the Simple garden Life Podcast, a program dedicated to keeping the yart
of gardening simple, fun and always rewarding. Now Here are your hosts,
Jim and Mary Competti. Hello and welcome everybody to the Simple garden Life Podcast.
I am Jim competting along with my wife Mary, Mary. How are
you doing today? I'm doing great? How about you? I cannot believe
it, but this is our last podcast of our third season. Been crazy
that we've been doing this now for three years and really looking forward to the
fourth season next year. We have some great new topics coming out, all
kinds of things about starting seeds and growing you know, vegetables and flowers,
just a little bit more of what we've been doing in the last three years.
Right. We absolutely love talking about gardening, but there's some other topics
that we like talking about as well. Yeah, there are, and you
know, especially in the winter time, we talk about birds. Bird articles
on our sites always seem to do really well, and that's because so many
people and gardeners, you know, love to feed birds and they know the
benefits birds can bring, that's right, from help to pollinate flowers vegetables to
eating insects. Birds are really beneficial to everybody. Oh yeah, absolutely.
I mean they can help control mosquitos, they can help control ticks, and
as you said, you know humming birds. There's so many birds that do
so many great things for garters. It's a little wonder that they love to
take care of them. And there's no better time to help birds than in
the winter when they can really struggle, especially you know, birds that for
some reason won't choose to fly south migrate. Yeah, so there is a
portion of birds and you know it when you look outside that decide, you
know, to stay where they're at, and those birds can struggle. You
know, you have cardinals and blue jays and that. The list can go
on and on. But in the winter time. We often hear this whenever
we put an article out. Sometimes you'll always get one comment back. It's
like, I don't know why we have to help birds or animals. They've
been doing this their entire lives. They should, you know, for centuries,
and they don't need help. The problem is the birds don't live in
the same environment in a lot of communities that they used to live in thousands
of years ago, right where there used to be lots of trees, forest
protection. There are now homes, streets and cars, and a lot less
chances for food and a lot more chances that a hungry eagle or a hungry
hawk can find them. So they do need help, and it can be
a struggle, especially during bad winters. And that's why feeding you know,
birds in the winter time is probably more important. It is more important than
any other time of the year. You know, in the spring, summer,
and fall, they have access to all kinds of insects, all kinds
of food, nuts, berries. In the wintertime, those disappear, right.
They're very hard to find under especially snow blanketed areas. You know,
they don't have the protection. They have to be out there so other animals
can see them. So it's a very dangerous time for birds. Yeah,
and then to take matters into their hands, you know, Unlike squirrels who
can store some food away for themselves, birds don't do that. They can't
do that. So they wake up every morning with one thing in mind,
survival. And that means they have to find enough to eat to keep their
bodies warm, and then they have to fill themselves up enough to keep their
bodies warm overnight. And when you talk about expending energy. Birds most species
will burn more energy in the winter than they do in the summer months,
because they're just trying to stay warm, you know, and they don't have
that ability in the wintertime. So, you know, I think we've established
why feeding them as important. But also there's the joy and the fun of
it. For a lot of gardeners, I know, we're the same way.
There's something special about looking out on that barren landscape and seeing your bird
feeder filled with cardinals or blue jays or you know. They add a little
bit of life to winter. Absolutely, and you'll see all windows across America
or even around the world to have bird feeders out there, even if you're
not a gardener. Everybody likes to see the birds coming and you know,
feeding off the feed that they get in the bird feeders. Oh absolutely,
So let's cover that. That's what we're going to talk about today, is
the best way to help feed birds in the winter and help them stay alive
so that they're around next spring to help out. And you know, as
we always say, you know, we'll have all of our notes on simple
Garden Life on the article. You can always find it on the site.
You feel free to email us at the farm at ow garden dot com if
you have any questions or suggestions. We still have some open slots next year
for some podcast titles, so always feel free to drop us a line.
We love being able to do this. And today's topic we'll get into now,
which is how to feed these birds and keep them alive until next spring.
All right, Mary, We will cover you know, some of the
extra things a little bit later, but let's start off with talking about you
know, what feeds and seeds are most important and are the best to feed
birds, because that is really the best way to help them out. Absolutely,
there's all types of products. I'll the market of what type of bird
seed, bird feed, but they're really anything that is a high calorie,
high fat bird feed is the best. Yeah, you're looking for things that
are going to give them a quick boost of energy that they can eat and
it's going to power them up. And there's some of the best of the
best. And really when it comes to number one on the list, and
we talk about this sunflower seeds, but a special variety which are black oil.
Sunflower seeds black oil are just loaded with fat. They're the most nutritious
of all sunflower seeds, and they exactly let they sound. They're that dark
black sunflower. You can find them in twenty five pound bags. We'll have
some links on the side if you need to buy them online, but they're
usually in local feed stores. You know, they double the calorie content of
a traditional sunflower most seeds. Now people say, well, should I not
be feeding them regular sunflower seeds? They are still extremely nutritious, right,
It just happens to be that the black oil sunflower seed has double the calories
that a typical stripe sunflower seed has. Absolutely, and you just want to
make sure that they're included in your feeds. So we're going to go through
these feeds and people always ask, well, should I just feed them that?
And the answer to that is no. You want to have, you
know, a variety. First of all, different birds prover different things.
But the more variety, it's just like a human diet. You know,
if you eat all, you know, oranges every day, that may be
great invited and seeing anything else, but it's not going to give you everything
you need. So you want to have a little variety, right, You
need a more complex diet. So beyond black oil sunflower seeds, next on
that list, believe or not, or something that everybody enjoys usually are peanuts.
Peanuts another think about the oil that are in peanuts. You can open
up a peanut butter jar and you see that oil right on top right now.
Again, also high calorie, high fat, it is, it is,
and so different things for different birds though. So if you have blue
jays, blue jays are notorious for absolutely loving peanuts. Unfortunately, blue jay's
and we have an article on this, can sometimes get a little bit aggressive
in protecting that food source from other birds. So blue jays love whole peanuts,
and so if you can get like what they call them blue jay feeders
or sock feeders and fill them with peanuts and put them in another location,
they'll tend to go there. They love cracking them open and eating them.
And then for your other birds in your feeds, if you can mix some
peanut pieces whole peanuts cracked peanuts, that makes them go a little bit longer.
But either way, you're giving all of those birds a lot of food
and a lot of high energy, high fat, which is exactly what the
end of needs. So we've talked about sunflower seeds and black oil is the
best peanuts now that the peanuts are can being left in the shell. Oh
absolutely, for the For the blue jays, it's perfect and most birds will
still get them. But like I said, sometimes it's nice with them in
the winter to put them in a separate area, so you're getting those blue
jays a little bit farther away. So the third one, and this is
a really good one, but another one that you don't want to use just
by itself, but crackcorn. You know, crack corn is good for a
lot of reasons. First of all, it's great on your budget. It's
one of the cheaper bird feeds that you can use. You know, a
lot of people feed it to their chickens. We have for years and why
because it gives them that big boost of energy and help keep them warm in
the winter. Does the same thing for birds. Not quite as much as
the sunflower seeds and the peanuts, but pretty high source. But when you
count in that, it is pretty caloric and that has a lot of carbs
and it can help them and then you're not pain as much. It's a
nice feed to mix in there, right, And this is a good you
know, like you said, it's good to have a mixture of all three
of the black oil, sunflower seeds, the peanuts, and the crack corn,
because you do want to attract different varieties of birds and try to feed
everybody that you can during the winter. Yeah, it's really true. So
I'll tell you what those are. Some three we call them the big three,
I guess, and the really three mains. We're going to come back.
We're going to take a quick break and we're going to talk about some
other things to supplement in there that can really help. And then also we're
going to talk about helping them out with something that people forget about in the
winter, which is how important water is still to birds. You know,
in fact, it's more important. It helps you know, they have to
be hydrated in order to be able to eat the food and burn the energy.
So we'll cover those and ways to help them right after this, and
we are back talking about birds and feeding them and keeping them alive. And
you know, we covered the main feeds that you want to have in that
feed er. You know, sunflower seeds, the black oil, the best
crackcorn, and then peanuts. Those are all good. Any type of nuts
they're going to love. But supplementing the feeds is an important way it keeps
just think about again humans, you know, we like to have something a
little bit different now and then. Yeah, so for birds, one of
the things they love in the summertime obviously are the berries and the nuts.
And there are some berries available in the winter, you know, bushes,
you'll see them a lot of times they're dried, but as the winter goes
on, there's less and less and less available. So that's something you can
really put in, whether it's dried fruit, dried fruit pieces, mix that
into your feed. They absolutely love that same thing with nuts. Those are
two of the best, right and you know, having that variety and that
mixture can give them a boost of energy, but it helps them survive through
the winter, which is so important. And you know, instead of just
putting everything in a bird feeder, you can also it's beneficial to scatter some
on the ground as well. There are ground feeding birds and that is a
great point it kind of especially when feeders can get busy in the winter time.
It gives multiple places for the birds to be able to feed, and
there are some birds that prefer be down, especially if there tends to be
a few aggressive birds up top and it does help, You're right, especially
when you get snowpack. It can be on top and give them something right,
and birds naturally will scrape some down and drop them on the ground,
So that helps. But when you first fill your bird feeder, scattering you
know a handful or two below it is going to be beneficial as well.
Yeah, absolutely, So you know you get past that and you think about
it. The next best thing, well, I shouldn't see the next It's
actually a great thing is sue it. And a lot of people love you
know. You see the sew it blocks, you'll see them store. Sometimes
they'll have the seeds cover them. They put them in the shapes of cakes,
yeah, bells, or they're very nice. But they are such a
vital source of nutrients for birds. You know, you can actually make your
own at home. We actually have an article on Simple Garden Life on how
to make your own sewet blocks. If you just go to the search bar
and type in sue it, it'll be right there. But boy, all
it is is a rendered fat and then a bunch of food bird seed.
It might be the sun our seeds. It might be cracked corn, it
might be dried fruits. All gelled into that. They're much better to use
in the in the cold months, the winter months, because they do go
bad quite quickly from the heat. So a lot of people do not feed
in the winter or excuse me, in the summer with those. But ah,
the birds absolutely love them. It's it's a huge energy source for them.
Yeah, we actually used to make our own with the kids when they
were little. We just take pine cones and we'd slather peanut butter between there
and then dalse them in the seeds and hang them out on the trees.
It's a great way and I'm glad you brought that up because you know,
you can use your imagination when you're feeding birds. It doesn't have to be
a purchase suet block, it doesn't have to be a bird feeder. You
can make your own tray feeders, you can make your own sew it.
The peanut butter example is fantastic, and take pine cones or just a great
vessel and you can hang them and then you can, like you said,
sprinkle them with other types of nuts or just the peanut butter. Trust me,
they're going to like that as well. But it's just a great way
to keep the birds So we've talked about some of the best foods of all
and those really are the cream of the crop. And you can purchase seeds
with that mixture in there, or a portion of that mixture. But just
when you're when you're looking for winter feeds and you're looking at specific products,
just look out for the fillers. You know, so many times there's so
many fillers throwing it there are just of no value. And if you see
at the end of a week in the winter time especially, there's a bunch
of leftover stuff underneath your feeder, that's that's filler, and they're not going
to eat it, and you're paying for that and they're not eating it.
So that's why making your own or mixing some of your own with some of
these great seeds can really go a long way. Right, And again,
look for a high calorie, high fat seed nuts on berries and just like
people, you know, that's our comfort food in the wintertime. Yep is
it is? So all right, So we've talked about the feed. Now
let's get into that water subject. And Mary, I think we had a
question that probably leads right into that perfectly our question of the week this week,
right, it comes from Karen from Traverse City, Michigan. She asked,
I know water is important for birds, but I can't keep my bird
bathroom freezing over in the winter. That would be a problem Michigan. Yeah,
do you have any suggestions for how I can keep fresh water available?
Yeah, well, Michigan, it's a problem in a while too. Yeah,
it does get cold. So a couple things here. A great,
great, great question, Karen. By the way, so a lot of
people don't even leave their bird baths out. They might be stone, they
might be very worried about them cracking from that ice. There's a couple solutions.
But also I want to explain something about birds that a lot of people
don't realize. In the winter, Let's first talk about the bird bath.
If it can handle being outside and it freezes over, it's still important.
We'll cover that in one second. But if you really want to, there
are bird bath heaters. If you have the ability to have something plugged in
that you can put it in there and it'll keep that water through the coldest
temperatures, keeps it fresh. They can come down and get it, they
can still use it. A lot of people do that. There's actually just
electric ones you can put on your deck that can hold water. However,
and this is important, understand that birds can still get hydration from frozen water.
You know, they will come down, they will peck at it.
They will you know, chickenis are great for this. They're gonna take it
right off. They're gonna take the snow they're gonna get, so don't worry
as much. However, it's nice to have some type of a source of
water out there. So even if you have to bring your bird feeder in,
take a pail out there and it may freeze over, but they're still
going to be able to get some hydration from it until it freezes in after
it freezes too. But water is extremely important. If they don't have access
to it, they're gonna struggle. Right. We get the question a lot
too of should I put warm water out or cold water? You know what,
just put out normal normal cold water. You don't have to heat it.
It's not actually good for them, just just normal water. It's going
to freeze a little bit. Again, they can still get hydration from the
frozen water. If you have a lot of snowpack on the ground. Don't
worry. They're getting their water right there there. You know, they're taking
that snow in it and doing it. So that's that's really good from from
the standpoint of water. Now let's talk about you know, the shelter.
So birds other than chickadees. Chickadees will believe it or not, find bird
houses in the winter and use them. The whole has to be like an
inch and a quarter to an inch and at eight they'll use it. And
chickeny's crazy, it sounds they'll store some food in there too if they can.
Yes, squirrels and other things kind of find that out at the points,
but they will use that. So you know, if you have a
couple of small houses, leave them out, that's fine, but it's where
you locate them. And it's also the things that you can do other than
birdhouses that can really help birds. Biggest thing of all is like ornamental grasses,
perennial bushes, things, thickets. Those if they can at all be
left up over the winter, will do more to help your birds than anything
else. Yeah, they'll use that as a shelter absolutely. You know,
they're looking for a place at night in the middle day to stay stay warm
and to stay safe, stay hidden from other predators. Yeah, I mean,
you know, there's nothing that sticks out like a small bird with a
snow background to a hawk, and you know, it's this whole thing of
nature. I mean, you can't blame the hawk hungry too, and he's
looking for his food. But if you're trying to help these birds out and
you have your feeders right out in the middle of the open, it's it's
putting them at risk too. So yeah, you have to think about that.
And you talked about the grasses, and those are huge because if you
can keep them up, not only does it give them the shelter at night
where they can hide out and stay a little bit warmer and give them a
wind break, it also protects them from predators and so very very big and
very key to do that. As far as additional houses for other birds,
we've had that ask before and they're not going to use them. You know,
they're going to find nature as their best best way to kind of stay
safe. So that's where it's really important. And then last, but not
least, I just want to kind of cover this people ask about and we've
done several articles on this about you know, the beloved squirrel who also he
also likes the nuts and seeds. Yes, we have a walk that Mary
and I take every day in the winter time and we pass a bird feeder
that's up on a window sill about two feet from a tree, second story
windows, second story windows still and we laugh because every single day the same
squirrels up. They're just going to town. He's like, I love this,
you know, and you have to be caroling. Yes, they're going
to take some feed. But there are ways to help here, you know,
locating your if you if you have a feeder that you're trying to put
them in, putting a squirrel baffle, which is basically an upside down cone,
and as long as your pulls five and a half to six feet tall
your bird feeder, they're not going to be able to spring up to that
and get underneath it. That's a great way to protect it. Now,
there are some Houdini squirrels that can navigate it, but to help protect most
of them, Yeah, and you can get squirrel proof feeders. But again,
the word squirrel proof is kind of funny to me because there are some
amazing squirrels that even find their way into those. It helps you know,
what the best way to protect your bird feed and it's very easy to do
and it sounds crazy. Is if you have a little cayenne pepper, you
know, when you get your bird seed, mix that in. It's really
crazy. But you know, to us and to mammals, heat the CAPSI
in there hurts and you know it's a little hot on the tongue and squirrels
don't like that. Crazy as it sounds, it doesn't affect the birds in
the least. So you you know, mix a little in there. They
even make hot pepper bird foods. If squirrels are a real issue for you,
that is the answer they I know, but it's not. It doesn't
hurt anybody, even makes the squirrels go away a little bit. So hey,
there's some of our favorite winter tips for birds. And like I said,
you know, this is the last of our season three. We're really
excited for next year as well. We have a lot of fun doing this
and love hearing your comments and suggestions. So again, you can email us
at the farm at Old World Garden or excuse me, the farm at ow
Garden and just you know, reach out to us and let us know what
you're thinking. We love to hear from you. Mary. This has been
a great season. I'm really rewarding, exciting. We've got a lot of
new followers and a lot of great topics for next year. Absolutely all right,
I think it's time remember whatever you do, find the fun and gardening
and grow something beautiful. Happy guardening everyone. We hope you've enjoyed this episode.
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