New Ideas For Feeding Birds in the Wintertime

Blue Jay at my feeder last winter
Grandma Pearl

Some unique bird feeding ideas from Birds & Blooms magazine, and me!

I have always fed my backyard birds all winter long.  In fact, I feed them year round!  Standard bird feeders are great, but I recently found a couple of different ideas for feeding birds from the newest Birds & Blooms magazine (december/january 2014), and thought I would share them with you.

A fun natural bird feeder involves making a snowman!  from Connie Banet Miller of Wolcottville, IN comes this great idea:

Build a snowman, give him a wide-brimmed hat and fashion some hands.  Add sunflower seeds to the hat brim and to the palms of his hands.  She says she has been able to get some great images of birds eating out of the palms of the snowman's hands!

Lindy Franklin of Plano, TX fills up paper cups with bird seeds and then tosses the cups out on top of the fresh snow.  I can imagine how much fun it would be to watch the birds retrieving goodies from the paper cups!

I like to save egg shells for the birds to use as seed holders.  My husband is a big egg eater, so there are always tons of egg shells around here.  After I wash them out and let them dry, I add bird seed mixed with fruit and nut bird mixture, place them on the tray feeder and watch the birds as they discover their treats.  The blue jays especially seem to love to carry off the empty shells!

In the fall when the acorns are plentiful, I collect the extras to store in a cool, dry place.  When snow covers the ground, I toss the acorns on top of the snow under the bird feeders.  Squirrels are happy to have the nuts, and sometimes I am lucky enough to attract some wild turkeys this way!

Grandma Pearl

Meet 'Persistent Q. Squirrel', always ready to grab a free handout!
Grandma Pearl

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