On cold and blustery winter days, it’s sometimes hard to believe that birds and other creatures can survive out there in the elements. We see birds flitting around our bird feeders, but what are they doing the rest of the time? Are they finding other food besides the bird seed from our feeders? Where do they roost at night and how do they keep warm? Most importantly, what can we do to help them?

Our backyard birds spend their winter days eating continuously. They have to, or they won’t have enough calories to burn to keep them warm during the night. Along with eating high fat foods such as suet cakes and sunflower seeds at our bird feeders, birds are adept at finding and taking advantage of natural food stores. For instance, chickadees eat conifer seeds, berries that remain on bushes, even scavenge fat from animal carcasses in the woods. Woodpeckers will forage for nuts, berries and seek out galls in trees that contain the larvae of insects or excavate the bark of trees for hidden insects and sap.

To make it easier for birds to forage wild foods and keep warm in winter, there are a number of things we can do around our yards to help out. First, don’t be so intent on cleaning up your garden in fall. Let your vegetables such as broccoli, carrots and parsley go to seed; they provide a good food source. Also flowers, such as sunflowers, coneflowers, thistles and milkweeds provide seeds during the winter if you don’t cut them back. Ornamental grasses are a good source of seeds in winter as well. Try keeping a section of your lawn un-mowed and let it go to seed. On days when the snow melts and the grass is revealed, the seeds will provide a bit of nourishment. Even weeds, such as goldenrod, will be helpful to birds if allowed to flourish and aren’t mowed down. And there are many bushes and shrubs that keep their berries long into the winter. Some, such as bittersweet are actually more palatable to birds after they’ve frozen and thawed. This way, they don’t get eaten up in the fall, but become valuable and sought-after in the dead of winter.

Shelter, particularly dense brush, gives birds a respite from cold, blowing winds during the day and a place to roost at night. If your lawn is a broad expanse of snow, it won’t help the birds. Try creating a brush pile in a corner of the yard rather than disposing of fallen leaves and dead branches. Start with a bed of raked up leaves and pine needles and then put your larger tree branches down. Then heap smaller branches on top, ending with cornstalks, grasses and other light vegetation. When the first snow falls, it will supply insulation over the pile. Birds will scratch through the leaves at the bottom for seeds and insect eggs without fear of exposure to predators and they can roost safely from owls and night time predators up inside the branches.

Article originally posted on Duncraft