Friday, December 09, 2011

Winter Bird Feeding


Every time I write something about bird feeding, I wonder why most people who love horticulture-y things, also love to feed birds.  I might know a handful of plant people who don't, but all-in-all, we plant people are bird people too. 
With plants, we appreciate nature and not just the green parts of nature but all the interconnecting parts.  Many of the plants we enjoy looking at provide the birds with wonderful foods so they can raise their own families.  It would be dull, indeed, if there were no bird songs, the background music of the outdoors.

That said, be sure to provide birds in our area lots of black oil sunflower seed.  Just by putting this out, you will get a nice mixture of many species of birds. 

Suet will attract those insect-eating birds like woodpeckers, wrens, chickadees, titmice, and nuthatches.  Hang it up in some sort of mesh wire or cloth & be sure to put it up where dogs can't get to it.

And another important item to provide birds is WATER.  You will be rewarded.