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Help birds endure winter’s cold temperatures

Marcia Davis
Special to the News Sentinel
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Just like people, birds must maintain body temperatures within a certain range or they will die.

Different bird species use different strategies to endure the cold days of winter. All have to stay warm one way or another. Most birds need extra food to do this. The colder their little bodies get, the more
food they need.

Marcia Davis

Protected roosting shelters for sleeping - dense evergreen trees and shrubs, natural tree cavities and even birdhouses - help small songbirds stay warm. Once they lose body heat on cold nights, they must burn their own body fat to generate heat and raise body temperatures back up to normal. Then they must quickly find and eat more food to replenish the body fat they just burned. The colder it is, the more food they require.

Well-stocked bird feeders help small songbirds obtain the extra food needed to control body temperatures and stay warm. Some birds take actions in addition to eating more food when temperatures drop. Bobwhite quail grouped in a covey of 10 to 15 birds stay warm by positioning
themselves in a tight circle on the ground with each bird facing outward. Eastern bluebirds may huddle together, sharing body heat inside bluebird houses - assuming you leave your houses out in the yard all
year and do not store them for winter in the garage.

A female red-bellied woodpecker eats suet from a plastic-coated suet cage attached to a tree trunk. High-calorie fatty suet is one of the most energy-rich foods to feed to birds on cold winter days.

Woodpeckers and some songbirds stay warm and protected from severe weather by roosting in natural tree cavities. Woodpeckers may sleep in a birdhouse if they can enlarge the entrance hole. Help woodpeckers and other cavity-nesters like eastern bluebirds, Carolina chickadees and
tufted titmice by leaving standing dead trees on your property whenever possible. Natural tree cavities are used as winter roost sites by many birds.

The food-hoarding habits of crows and their keen memories allow crows to stash food away and retrieve it when extra food is needed on winter’s coldest days. Blue jays and nuthatches also take food from bird feeders and stash it away for future use.

Carolina chickadees and tufted titmice have very high energy levels. In winter they must increase their food intake a lot in order to maintain their body temperature. Bird feeders stocked with sunflower seeds will help them on the coldest days. In very cold regions chickadees may eat 20 times as much food on cold winter days as they eat in summer. Chickadees and titmice never seem to miss an opportunity to
hang out at a winter bird feeder.

Species like cedar waxwings wander great distances looking for fruit and berries in winter. Roving flocks stop wherever they find abundant food. A yard full of berry-bearing plants like holly trees and shrubs
often attracts flocks of waxwings and robins.

Dark-eyed juncos store up a layer of body fat before winter arrives. It’s their insulation. When burned, it provides body heat, but it must be replaced. A junco may burn 12 to 15 percent of its body weight overnight just to keep warm. Birds need a lot of food to regain the weight and replace the fat.

One of the most important things you can do to help birds in winter - in addition to maintaining bird feeders - is to provide shelter with plants. Dense plantings of evergreen trees and shrubs offer protection from cold, wind, sleet and predators.

Ground-dwelling white-throated sparrows visiting your feeder by day prefer to gather together for the night in rows of dense evergreen shrubs. American goldfinches and purple finches also spend the night in dense plant cover. Dense evergreens provide protection from foul weather and concealment from predators. It’s not too late to plant evergreen trees and shrubs this year.

For much of the year we may think of our bird feeder offerings as just supplements to the natural diets of birds. Watching birds at a feeder is a source of entertainment and enjoyment. But when the
unusually cold days of winter arrive - with daytime temperatures below freezing and nighttime temperatures even colder - foods birds eat from our feeders can make a significant difference in how much fat they can store. Suet is an especially good source of fat for birds. If birds can store enough fat they can regulate their body temperatures and make it through our coldest days and nights.

To help birds through the coldest days of winter, provide extra food at feeders, including fatty suet. Provide unfrozen water, evergreen plant cover for shelter and protection from predators plus places for
nighttime roosting in tree cavities and birdhouses. Everyone can do something to help birds endure the coldest days of winter.

Freelance columnist Marcia Davis may be reached at  865-518-2473.

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