Do you feed the birds in Wintertime?

[Mel!]

Is so, do you put much though into what you give them or do you just shake the crumbs off the breadboard in the garden?

I buy sphere shaped bird food in a net bag and hang it on the trees in the garden every Winter. There is a variety of bird food available in the shops but I havent had any complaints about the spheres I always hang out, so I will continue to hand out the same ones.

Mel

 

[AllenOK]

We usually have both bird seed and a suet block out. My MIL loves to sit on the porch and watch all the little feathered critters come up to the house.

 

[LadyCook61]

I feed them year round. I have 2 poles with feeders on them. The birds get mixed seeds, sunflower seeds , cracked corn and suet.

 

[JMediger]

We take the seed style feeders in during the winter (due to snow) and replace them with suet feeders. I've read that if you take a food source away or move them, the birds will not come back (or at least it will take a while).

 

[phinz]

I would love to, but because of a massive chipmunk infestation last year, I can't do it anymore. I've considered moving the feeders down to the tree line, about 100' away, but still worry about the chipmunks.

 

[Joey69]

I do. I love watching them and so does my cat. (He's strictly an indoors cat) Sunflower seeds in one feeder and a mix in another along with a suet feeder. We have a visiting red squirrel now and then but he's not too much of a problem.

 

[justplainbill]

We have a platform feeder as well as a couple of hanging feeders as well as two birdbaths. Put out suet from December to April. Some year round species only seem to eat Nyger in the winter. Sunflower seed hulls seem to poison ground. So we prefer to use millet and cracked corn. Wife fries up cakes for the birds made from breadcrumbs and egg left over from breading porkchops.

 

[sparrowgrass]

Sunflower seed hulls do indeed inhibit growth of plants, jpb. I feed black oil sunflower seeds, but my feeders are all under a big pine that has nothing growing under it anyhow.

I love to feed the birds, but sunflower seeds have more than doubled in price in the last year or so. Might have to take some of my 6 feeders down.

Sometimes I make peanut butter blocks for the birds. I melt lard and peanut butter together, and mix in enough cornmeal/oatmeal/seeds to stiffen it up.

 

[quicksilver]

When I lived up north, I fed all kinds of birds with all kinds of feeders hung from a 4' x 4' x 8' tall post in the ground.
Although the doves like to eat off the ground.
They say once you start using feeders you have to be careful keeping the food source, as the birds become dependant. They will starve if you don't.
Down here though, food is not the problem. Clean, non-salt or brackish water is. So I have two bird baths. On 1 I installed a
small pump in to keep the water moving.(they say moving water
if what attracts the birds. And they sure do use it) I haven't set up the 2nd bath yet.
But about a month+ ago, I saw this: http://www.amazon.com/5WWGS-Water-Wiggler-Glazed-Pottery/dp/B000HHHECI/ref=pd_sim_ol_2 , on This Old House Show. And have been looking for it locally. (I want to see it in person to see if it will fit in my second bath.) Using this would be much easier than installing another pump. Plus it would be much easier than cleaning the pump every couple of days.

 

[CharlieD]

I do not specifically buy any foods but we always have tons of bread left overs. So I go to this small lake by my work and feed the ducks and the geese and what ever else lives there.

 

[B'sgirl]

I would love too! I can't really find a good place to hang a bird feeder though. Can you just hang one from a vinyl fence?

 

[Wart]

I bake bread twice a week or so. Last times bread is kept around because of uses for stale bread.

The time before bread is thrown out back for birds, squirrels and chipmunks, and whatever else finds it.

Nothing special, no feeders or apparatus.

 

[sparrowgrass]

B'sgirl, you can find feeders for any location. I have a couple that stick on the window itself, one hung from under the eaves, and a couple on a "shepherd's crook", a long iron pole with a couple of hooks at the top.

According to the Audubon society, it is not true that the birds will starve if you stop feeding them--they treat your feeders like any other food source. If they pick all the seeds off of the grass in the field, or all the apples off the crabapple tree, they move on to another field or another tree. Or another feeder.

I have heard folks say that they won't put out feeders because they can't remember to fill them all the time. You will have more birds if you keep them filled, because they will make your feeders a regular stop, but it won't hurt the birds to have an unexpected windfall once in while, if your feeders are full sometimes and empty sometimes.

I keep my feeders full from October til May, just cause I like to watch the birdies.

 

[Constance]

We feed the birds in the winter. I have a supposedly squirrel proof feeder from Gardeners' Supply, but the squirrels learned how to loosen up the hanging wires so the feed would pour on the ground. DH wired them together, which helped, but occasionally one of the bigger squirrels will hang from that wire by his hind feet so he can reach the seeds.
I have found that if I put food out for them separately, it does help keep them satisfied. They love cornbread.

We don't feed the birds in the summer, as we live in the country, and there is plenty for them to eat around here then.
I get tickled at the downy woodpeckers during mating season, as the male seems determined to show the lady what a good pecker he is, and we hear him drumming on the trees all day long. It's a wonder he doesn't rattle his brain.

 

[jpmcgrew]

I also feed year round in the summer it's mostly cracked corn in the winter I give them cracked corn, bird seed and suet cakes. The problem is the Pinon Jays they can eat all the suet in one day making it hard for the Mountain Chickadees, Finches and other little birds to get any suet. I rigged up a metal milk carton with extra wire so the Jays can't get in it but little ones can get to suet. Anyone have any other ideas to solve this problem? So here are some of the birds we get Pinon Jays, Red Winged Blackbirds, Eurasian Doves, Mourning Doves, Grackles, Finch,House Sparrows, Chickadees, Grosbeaks, Magpies, Crows, Flicker, Clark's Nutcracker, Humming Birds. The other birds on the ranch are Bald Eagle, Golden Eagle, Red Tailed Hawk, Cliff Swallows, Owls, Mountain Bluebirds, Pygmy Nuthatch, Turkeys, Grouse, Snow Geese, Ducks there are more I just can't think of right now.

 

[LeeAnn]

We used to feed the birds, we had feeders out and the suet holders, and we put out other goodies for them. The kids have been asking if we are going to get birdfeeders again, we'd put them up on a high branch area that the cats could not get to - they could just "try". I like to see fat little birds sitting in the branches, I think they look pretty cute!

 

[Alix]

I do. Little boogers are pigs though. I hang two feeders and the one they prefer will be empty in a few hours. The other one lasts a couple of days. I will only refill the first one if the sparrows have taken off for awhile. The chickadees and nuthatches get first dibs that way.

 

[DramaQueen]

The covenants and restrictions for our subdivision forbid birdfeeders with the exception of hummingbird feeders. The birds create a real problem with the stucco and walls behind our homes, not to mention what they do to the tile roofs. Unfortunately, it's not so much the birds they're trying to keep away, it's the dang pigeons, and birdfeeders bring pigeons. Thousands of them.
We can't feed them or we'll be fined and that's okay with me. You can't imagine the mess they make and the more they're fed, the more come to get fed.

 

[Mel!]

breadcrumbs and egg

Somehow, the idea of birds eating eggs is weird.

 

[quicksilver]

LOL!, Mel. I thought so too. But my grandmother made bacon and eggs for my grandfather their whole married life. She raised canaries. After making eggs for grandpa, she made one for the birds, with the yolk dunked in dry toast and cut up in little tiny pieces. They loved it! Go figure!