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Right now the northern states are blanketed in snow, and stepping outside can be hazardous. Winter temperatures can dip below zero degrees Farenheit, and the wind chill pushes far below that. We can throw on layers or stay inside, but what do the birds do? How can 
we help birds brave the winter onslaught of freezing temperatures and battering snow?
Birds can make it through the winter without our help, but many people provide their bird visitors with a heated bird bath. Open water is hard to find in winter, and by providing birds with a constant source of water you will attract more birds to your yard. Some birds (not all) will eat snow, but the amount of energy it takes to process this snow into water is high.
So, you can make life easier for your backyard visitors with a watering dish that does not freeze over. You don’t need to buy a brand new bird bath – you can buy a small heater that you leave inside your current bird bath with an extension cord. But, it is a good idea to use some caution when using a heated bird bath as well. When temperatures drop too far, a bird’s feathers can freeze after taking a bath or even from the steam that comes up from the birdbath. This can be dangerous for the bird, even resulting in death.
Laura Erickson of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has some good recommendations on how to deal with this problem. Here is a link to an article on her new book, “The Bird Watching Answer Book, Everything You Need to Know to Enjoy Birds in Your Backyard and Beyond“.
Here is the paragraph specifically regarding heated bird baths:
In a section titled “Birds Don’t Need Hot Tubs,” Erickson states: “I would never use a heated bath when temperatures were below about 20 degrees to prevent steam from coating feathers.” She recommends placing a grill made of wooden dowel rods over a heated bath to prevent bathing while allowing access for drinking. If the bird bath is frozen, Laura sets out a small plastic container of water near the bird food in the morning and brings it in when it freezes.
So, while a heated bird bath can make your backyard a winter birding bonanza, you also must keep the safety of your feathered friends in mind. Cornell has some suggestions on setting up a birdbath which can help both you and make the winter a better time for year for your backyard visitors.
eclipsed by no other bird in our garden; in the fall, even with a color change he is still quite the beauty. This morning he has been frequenting the wisteria behind our home and he looks so great mixed in with the changing leaves. Known to us as Senor Cardinal for his haughty elegance, his female companion possesses none of the patience nor self-confidence he does. She flits from branch to branch in a constant state of chirping frenzy – even with their baby having fledged long ago and no longer needing constant care. Her agitated state has ratcheted down from when the baby was fledging, but she still is one of the most excitable birds in the garden – and very difficult to get a photo of as she is a moving target. So, here is an early December homage to Senor Cardinal – sporting his ever-so-slightly diminished fall coloring. In the snow he is a standout….can’t wait!
right? But, the times they are a changing. Now researchers from the University of Washington have discovered that there are some birds who make a stop in Mexico on the way down south, not to rest and molt, but to start a second family for the season. Known as “migratory double breeding”, this is the first instance of it in the new World, and the first time it has been documented anywhere in a southerly migration. The species researchers discovered taking part in this were Yellow-billed cuckoos, Orchard orioles, Hooded orioles, Yellow-breasted chats and Cassin’s vireos.
Nature configures itself in interesting ways that have meaning and speak to us where we are. So it was for Jarbas Agnelli, a Brazilian musician, who saw music in the pattern of birds on wires. Letting the visual pattern the birds made on the wires be the notes, the outcome of this one photo frame of resting birds is a flight of music to anyone’s ears. 
The storms this week that brought rain and cooler weather also brought a lot of migratory birds into our city garden. Today was a busy day in the early afternoon for about an hour when one bird after another came to grab some food and a drink from 
our fountain. At one point the fountain had an avian traffic jam with a Robin, several Catbirds, a Hermit Thrush and three Cardinals (I believe our Cardinal family from this year), all trying to get their space at the watering hole. At one point we saw a Towhee, and that is when I got out the camera. I got out my iPhone and brought up my 
birds during migration if for no other reason than sometimes there are huge numbers of them. I was in Panama several seasons ago and the hawks were kettling as of thousands of them flowed into a tight formation to stay over land, battling for space over the isthmus of Panama. It’s like when the 
superhighway suddenly loses a lane and all the cars back up because they have to change the traffic flow to accommodate fewer lanes. And it is a boon to hawk watchers.
identifications.
If I am still not sure at that point, even though I probably have it narrowed down to only one or two, then I touch the information icon on the app on the birds in question so I can see the text. Sometimes there is identifying information in there that is not quickly visible in the image.
for birds of prey.
winters. So when that yellow warbler leaves your backyard and heads to Central America, he starts his journey with the full intention of having a place to stay and food to eat when he arrives in his winter home. Since it is cheaper and easier to grow coffee by clear cutting the land of all trees and shrubs, this kind of agriculture is a very bad thing for the birds which migrate to these areas as well as the other wildlife which live there. Exhausted after a grueling trip south, battling hurricanes and all kinds of challenges, increasingly more often, migratory songbirds are reaching their traditional overwintering grounds and finding they have been clear cut or destroyed. Coffee is naturally a shade loving plant, but since it is cheaper to clear cut the growing area and then just treat the coffee plants with chemicals to keep them going, this has become the new norm for larger agricultural enterprises. So, if we want to help migratory birds (and other animals, too) keep their populations up by retaining their habitat intact and chemical free, buying shade grown coffee which is grown on plantations which retain the trees and undergrowth necessary for songbirds is an easy and practical solution.
thought I had found a great shade grown coffee, and have been using it for a very long time, only to discover that it most probably is shade grown but not bird friendly.
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