Winter Bird Feeding: Tips for Attracting Birds to Your Yard

Join ecologist and avid birder Steven Lamonde for an hour-long presentation on bird feeding best practices, with special focus on the health and wellbeing of New Hampshire’s winter birds. From seed and suet selection to feeder placement, find out how you can turn your backyard into a refuge for winter birds - and discover how you can contribute to community science projects such as FeederWatch and the Great Backyard Bird Count, just by watching your feeders.
Recorded on Zoom on January 10, 2022
Programs like this are made possible by donations from people like you. To lend your support, please go to harriscenter.org/donate

[@throttle_therapy0025]

Very helpful.

[@sweetmary6793]

I feed the birds and all kind of birds are welcome to my yard, squirrels, starling, crows, sparrows, revens, I just love and enjoy all of them. I'm just thankful for them to come to visit my yard, they are God's beautiful Angels, thanks to the birds I'm more active. Someone told me ones you put the first birds feeder then you will put more and more just to enjoy the differents kind of birds and colors and sizes, I just wanna say Thank you God for let me see your beautiful creations birds, animals, flowers, plants, sky, trees. Thanks for everyday, blessings.

[@jillshank5096]

Thank you so very much for your presentation. Happy to find I know more than I thought I did!

[@malawideep7980]

Excellent video it's well done and very informative...and the Q and A's were great

[@MaryR1231]

Thank you ! I have learned so much. I will be watching this a few times. It was a lot of very informative.

[@scrane5500]

Birds are amazing--just another reason for me to not eat eggs (as I have a family history of Cancer the choline in eggs is the other). Great talk--thank you

[@annereynolds66]

BJ’s sells human unsalted peanuts in shell , cheaper than any I have seen . Five lbs at 6.88

[@ale_the_ia9033]

I live on the edge of a National Forest and have been feeding birds for several years now. As for squirrels, try using safflower seed only in a feeder and nyjer seed in a feeder for finches. Squirrels, and other mammals including bear, deer, raccoons, etc, don’t like the bitter taste of these seed. Another option is to use hot pepper/capsaicin treated seed and suet, which I use for most of my feeders except for one large hopper that I make my own seed/nut mix for. I take that one down every evening and hang it back up every morning. I hang it from a hook in my shed during the night. A garage would also be a good option for that. Providing shelter for your birds, like shrubs and trees, is important for their safety, but you also need to take into account bushes give predators like cats a place to crouch and hide. And too many trees can block a bird’s view of the sky when watching for hawks. So there are pros and cons to both. Planting evergreen trees give birds a dense place to hide and more protection from the cold of winter, especially at night. As for heated bird baths, rocks should be placed inside the basin to allow drinking, but prevent actual bathing. Cold winter air on their wet feathers can freeze, affecting their ability to fly. Birds find cracks in ice, drink water dripping from icicles in the sun, and will even eat snow if water sources are unavailable. In the warmer months they’ve been seen drinking drops of dew from leaves. They’ve survived long before our help, and would continue to do so. It’s just fun helping them out, is probably one of my favorite hobbies 😊

[@harriscenter]

Thanks for sharing all of your tips and insights, sounds like you are a wealth of knowledge!

[@annereynolds66]

You can get safflower seed alone , I do all the time . The golden safflower is easy for them to eat . Also , I use the black seed mixed with fine peanut pieces , they like it more , my downy Evan eats it from my finch feeder

[@steelmonkey7609]

Here we are in late December, and I still haven't seen any Dark eyed Juncos. Any tips you can give me would be appreciated. Last year I didn't notice them until we had snow on the ground. Thanks from Cape Cod Mass.

[@harriscenter]

Our Bird Conservation Director Phil says, "Interesting... especially because around here in southwest New Hampshire we've seen large numbers of juncos - although mainly from wild places and not bird feeders. There is an abundance of wild food this year, so perhaps many didn't move south in large numbers as they usually do. I was also in southern MA this weekend and noticed very few juncos, which was intriguing to me at the time."

[@BirdBath1]

1. Water 💧

[@h.a.ttopcuoglu3143]

🇹🇷Balkonumdan 3,5metre uzunlugunda olta kamisi ucuna bir semsiye(kumassiz!)astim. Her teline de degisik yem... Tam bir gozlem ,solen... Komsularimin balkon ve pencereleri de kirlenmiyor!... Hollanda'dan selamlarla, esenlikle 🇳🇱 2024 talih kusu da basiniza Kona.

[@gatoslokosforever]

i've been feeding for a couple years in a courtyard with dirt and a pomegrenate tree.. but I found a mouse a few days ago it, used a humane trap to relocate it in the wild but I am wondering what's the proper approach? my birds seemed to like it on the ground.

[@harriscenter]

Spreading seed on the ground will continue to attract mice. A humane trap to relocate the mouse is a fine option if you want to continue spreading seed on the ground.

[@gatoslokosforever]

@@harriscenter If I move the feeder up hanging on a string, the kind of feeder that's like a tray.... that would discourage some birds?

[@harriscenter]

@@gatoslokosforever It depends on what kind of birds you have in your area! Some birds definitely prefer feeding on the ground, while others prefer feeders. You might see a change in the birds you're attracting if you start feeding from a tray rather than the ground.

[@gatoslokosforever]

@@harriscenter I think I'll keep using the tray for a while and see what happens! So far same birds come but it's a lot less of them, seems they don't understand yet. Hopefully they'll get used to. Thanks a lot! Nice content!

[@harriscenter]

@@gatoslokosforever Hopefully they'll adjust soon! Thanks for watching our video.