| Tweet Your Feathered Friends to Winter Meals | |
| Just because it’s cold outside doesn’t mean you should neglect your bird feeders. There’s quite a few wild birds that will be around and will gladly accept a meal of their favorite seed. Keep your feeders filled for the travelers who may be using your yard as a rest stop and for those winter hardy birds that don’t fly south. Homemade Holiday Tweets for the Birds This is fun for the kids and it helps wild birds at the same time. I made them myself so I know anyone can... Ingredients: Plain Bagels Peanut Butter Wild Bird Seed & Cracked Corn Decorative Holiday Ribbons Cut the bagel in half. Spread peanut butter on the bready part of the bagel. Dip into the wild bird seed, coating the peanut butter side completely. Loop ribbon through the hole in the bagel and tie securely. Tie the bagel onto a limb of an outdoor tree and fashion a nice bow with the ribbon. Do several of them with different seeds and cracked corn to decorate your outdoor christmas tree and offer the winter birds a tree full of winter tweets. | |
Feeding Them From the Table
Feeding birds from the table is not a new concept. People feed the pigeons everyday in large cities and we’ve thrown bread crumbs out since we were children. There are many foods that are great sources of nutrition for our wild birds but there are many that can kill them.
Blackbirds and other thrushes enjoy fruit in their natural diet. Offering fruit in fall and winter, when fruit is usually not available to them, is a welcomed treat and helps ensure their survival through winter. Apples, pears, grapes and currants are all great sources of nutrition but do not offer citrus fruits. They can be dangerous to wild birds.
Peanuts are a good source of proteins and oils and valuable as a food source for birds. Whole peanuts, however, can choke young nestlings. In winter you don’t need to worry so much about that but in spring it’s a good idea to feed them peanut pieces to be on the safe side.
Pieces of fat are good as are pieces of bread. There are a few problems that you might encounter when feeding scraps from the kitchen. Uneaten foods are not attractive and can create some unwanted company such as rodents, opposums and cats. You may also be encouraging flocks of starlings or larger species of birds that can be a detriment to other birds you’re trying to protect.
From The Autumn 99 Edition of What's
Up, Doc?, October, 1999
© Copyright 1999, The Pond Doc's Water Garden Center. All rights Reserved.
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