Depending on where you live, the landscape may be suggesting a white Christmas or perhaps you have been spared shoveling for now. Sooner or later, however, we will be fully into the grip of winter and your backyard birds will be looking for a helping hand.

The important thing to remember is that it is all about food, not so much how it is made available. There is a significant variety of feeder types in every price range but the important thing is to have several types of food available. The easiest one is suet which can be purchased in blocks and dispensed in a suet cage or you can ask a butcher for scraps of beef fat to feed the birds. The next easiest and long-lasting product is shelled peanuts which are placed in a peanut feeder. Both types of food appeal to woodpeckers, nuthatches and chickadees. Carolina Wrens like it too.

Finally, there is seed. Mixed seed appeals to sparrows, juncos and doves while a great variety of birds love black-oil sunflower seeds, especially finches and jays. If you can only use one type of seed, make it sunflower seed.

Enjoy winter bird feeding.

Brian Morin

Publisher of Ontario Birding News