Got the winter blahs? Draw winter wildlife to your yard to wipe away the gloom! You may already know this, but I am a huge proponent of gardening for wildlife. For one thing, I believe that I owe it to the wildlife living in this area. After all, we only paid off humans when we bought our property – the wildlife was left out of the negotiations. But gardening for wildlife is also a selfish act on my part. Having wildlife in my yard makes those long winter months so much more entertaining. Instead of seeing an empty garden, with nothing to look at but dormant plants, my garden is full of life, making the season so much more bearable for an eager gardener. And a yard that is robust with wildlife tends to be a healthy yard. A diverse wildlife community within your garden will keep the ecosystem in better harmony than a garden that is constantly struggling for balance by use of pesticides and herbicides (and you won’t be introducing toxins into the food chain!)
To keep my garden bustling with birds and other animals during the winter, these are my top ten wildlife attractions:
1. An Assortment of Bird Feeder Styles
A bird feeder is a no brainer, but offering up an assortment of different styles of feeders really does help bring in the birds. In winter, birds will often feeder hop from house to house as a big group of mixed bird species. The group that comes to my feeder consists of juncos, black capped chickadees, house finches, sparrows, downy woodpeckers, and more. Different bird species prefer different styles of feeders. My bird gangs will show up more often and stick around longer with a larger selection of feeder types.
Some feeder styles that my visitors seem to prefer are hoppers, tubes and platforms. I usually fill them all with a mix of sunflower seeds, safflower seeds, white millet, and cracked corn. In addition to the birds, of course, these attract squirrels. So I have some feeders that I just accept have become squirrel feeders. But I make sure to keep other feeders full that squirrels can’t eat from (or at least can’t eat from easily, such as the Squirrel Buster feeders.) When I fill the feeders, I usually toss some seed on the ground around my feeders and under the shrubs surrounding them. Many birds, such as the elegant Spotted Towhee, prefer to eat off of the ground.
There must be a type of seed in the mix I use that rabbits like because I also usually have rabbits snacking away under my bird feeders! But I guess you never really know who is going to show up to eat from your feeders as you can see in the picture above! That is part of the fun! I know many people hate squirrels, rabbits and deer in their yard, but I enjoy seeing all of them out there, especially in the winter. Besides, a yard with no rabbits is probably a yard that doesn’t see many foxes, and who doesn’t love seeing a fox slink through their yard?
2. Suet Feeder with a Tail Prop
I intentionally list this style of feeder separately from the others. For one thing, I fill all of the others with a seed mix, whereas this feeder uses suet. Additionally, the other feeders are clustered together and seem to attract the winter mixed species “gangs.” The suet feeders attract a different group of birds. They attract flickers, chickadees, nuthatches, and bushtits. They also attract the downy woodpeckers that show up with the seed feeder gangs. Bushtits are fun birds to attract because they show up in large groups of 10 to 20 plus and smother the feeder, as you can see in the picture above. The tail props are very helpful for larger birds like the flickers. It makes clinging to the feeder to eat comfortable and easy for them. I keep the suet feeder separated from the others because the flickers are a bit skittish. They don’t seem to like to eat while surrounded by loads of other birds fluttering about.
Squirrels also love suet, so we keep our suet feeder close to our house to make it a little less comfortable for the squirrels. Squirrels can make it through a suet cake in less than two days, so if you want most of the suet to go to the birds, make sure to put it somewhere that is less than convenient for squirrels. Don’t grease the poles to your bird feeder hangers to deter squirrels! The grease gets on the fur and feathers of wildlife causing clumping and losing loft. The air/loft in an animal’s fur or feathers is what keeps it warm. Without it they lose their ability to retain their body heat and can freeze to death.
3. Heated Birdbath
A heated birdbath is a great way to draw birds to your yard every morning. In Colorado, winter morning temperatures are often well below freezing. This means that thirsty birds can’t find anything but ice without your help. The heated bird bath I have only kicks on when the temperatures fall below freezing, so I don’t have to worry about wasting energy by having it run when not needed.
We get lots of birds visiting every morning in winter because the birds know they can count on finding water to drink there. The last couple of years, we have even had a flock of around ten Robins come around most mornings. I guess they have decided to forget about migrating! Many different species of birds come to our bird bath. The house finches love it, the doves love it, the jays love it, etc. Even the flickers drink out of it. If the birds don’t seem to notice yours for a while after you set it up, have patience. It may take a few weeks for birds to notice it, then grow to trust it enough to use it. But once they do, they will keep coming back!
4. Shrub Thicket
A thicket of cotoneaster is the favorite natural winter draw for birds in my yard. And because I place the feeders close to it, the birds can easily hop onto the feeders, eat for a bit, then hop back in the thicket where they are safe from hawks. As anyone who lives along the foothills knows, we can have some very strong wind. The small birds fly into the thicket for shelter whenever the wind really kicks up.
5. Ornamental Grasses
Ornamental grasses – I never cut my ornamental grasses back in the fall. They provide great shelter for insects and birds as well! Many insects overwinter in ornamental grasses. And during snow fall, many birds, including junco,s seem to like to take shelter under the snow covered grasses. Maidenhair grasses, such as Gracillimus Miscanthus, bend over in the snow and create perfect little pockets of shelter under the bowing, dried leaves.
6. Dense Evergreens
Many types of wildlife appreciate dense evergreens such as blue spruce trees in the winters here in Colorado. They not only provide animals with a place to hide out of sight of predators, but they also provide shelter from snow as well as the wind which can be horribly strong and bitter cold during winter months. Junipers provide shelter to many animals as well as food for birds like robins, Townsend Solitaires and Cedar Waxwings.
Just because you don’t have a lot of room doesn’t mean you can’t fit in an evergreen tree. There are loads of narrow, columnar style evergreen trees, such as the columnar Norway Spruce, that can fit quite happily into very tight spaces! If you don’t have a spot to accommodate a tall, narrow evergreen tree (or even if you do) consider adding some evergreen shrubs. There are attractive, evergreens shrubs for just about any condition. The Dwarf Serbian Spruce is a beautiful and versatile shrub that is one of my favorites! Evergreen shrubs are an excellent way to draw winter wildlife to your yard.
7. Piles of Dead Branches
I pile up branches behind our shed to create another protected area for birds and other smaller animals. It serves as a secure spot for our resident skunk to sneak out from under the shed and look around to make sure that the coast is clear before heading out into the yard! He doesn’t like surprises and I would really hate to surprise him! Any help I can give to prevent him from being startled (especially by me) is well worth the effort!
8. Chopped Up Fruit
When our grapes or strawberries get a little too mushy or bruised, I cut them up into small pieces and throw them into our vegetable boxes. Before long robins will come around each morning to see if I have thrown out a treat for them. This seems to work best starting closer to the end of winter and continuing into spring, although I don’t know why. If I toss out chopped up fruit in January, nobody seems to take interest in it. Maybe when the temperatures are too low the fruit isn’t easy to swallow? Or maybe while the temperatures are lower, the birds want to fill their bellies with higher fat and protein content foods? I have no idea, but come March, chopped up fruit is a big hit!
9. Don’t Dead Head
Unless they are a bit on the invasive side, I don’t deadhead my perennials in the fall. Some gardeners insist that you should cut back your perennials in the fall, and I have to admit that come spring, when I am trimming off all of last year’s growth, I envy those gardeners, because they are already able to move on to more exciting spring gardening activities. But leaving your perennials untrimmed for the winter is beneficial to wildlife. The seeds in those dead flower heads can serve as much needed nutrition for birds during the cold winter months. Leaving the dead leaves, stems, and flowers in place also provide insects with places to overwinter. If you don’t want to leave them for the sake of the insects, leave them for the sake of the birds who will be hunting for insects in dead plant matter for a mid-winter nutritious treat!
Some examples of plants that birds will thank you for leaving until spring cleanup are sunflowers, of course, but also liatris, asters, echinacea, sedums, rudbeckia, and coreopsis. Each year I allow two volunteer woolly mulleins to grow in my front yard and two in my backyard. In the fall, I leave them. During the winter, I always end up seeing downy woodpeckers hopping up and down the flower stalks searching for a tasty, hidden insect snack. So, go ahead, be lazy in the fall and don’t clean up your yard. And don’t feel guilty about it! Feel good knowing that you are helping out the wildlife by leaving everything be.
10. Fruit Bearing Trees and Shrubs
We are lucky to have a large selection of trees and shrubs that grow berries and other fruit that will draw wildlife to your yard during the winter months. Some wildlife favorites that do well in Colorado’s zone 5 and hold onto their fruit well into winter include crabapple trees, dogwood shrubs, roses, pyracantha, and many viburnums. Not only are these particular plants great for attracting winter wildlife to your yard, but they are also beautiful garden additions! You can’t go wrong with any of them!
Make winter a season to enjoy rather than a season to simply survive until you can get back in the garden. Draw winter wildlife to your yard to make it entertaining during this slow season for gardeners! Try adding some of these attractions to your yard. Then make yourself some coffee, pull up a chair, and enjoy the show!