With the right additions, your yard can be even more attractive to resident and migrating birds. Here's five steps you can take to get your yard ready for the birds this spring.
1) Start out Clean!
Start the season with a little spring cleaning! Clean your feeders, baffles, poles, and weather guards with a 10% bleach solution (one part bleach to nine parts water). Do it on a sunny day if you can and let the feeders air-dry in the warm sun. Take time now to repair any weather damage to your feeders and replace those beyond repair. Rake up any debris under your feeding stations.
WBU Advanced Pole System Setup
2) Set up a New Bird Feeding Station
Adding a WBU Advanced Pole System® bird feeding station with new feeders can help attract more birds to your yard. More feeders, spread farther apart, can reduce overcrowding and help lessen birds’ stress.
Also, by offering new or different foods in your new feeders, you’ll attract a greater variety of birds to your yard.
Birdbaths attract a wider variety of birds
3) Add a Bird Bath to Attract New Birds
Birds need water to keep their feathers in top-flight condition and for good insulation on cool spring nights. Add a decorative bird bath that is bird-friendly with sloping sides. If it's too deep, add pieces of slate or a rock in the middle to allow smaller birds to perch.
Clean your existing bird baths with a stiff-bristled brush and a 10% bleach solution (like the one used to clean your feeders in #1). Rinse thoroughly and allow them to completely air dry. Refill your bird baths with fresh water at least once a week.
Carolina Wren love mealworms (and Suet Snacks!)
4) Serve Birdfoods that Contain Bugs and/or Fruit
In spring, a bird’s need for protein increases dramatically. And many insect- and fruit-eating birds like Gray Catbirds, Northern Mockingbirds, Baltimore Orioles, wrens and others are returning from their winter homes. Yet fruits and insects are not naturally abundant yet. You can help by serving birdfood that will help birds until they can transition to eating natural sources of fruits and insects.
Loaded with protein, mealworms can help you attract insect-eating birds like bluebirds or wrens. Many bird parents like the bluebirds will often bring their offspring to mealworm feeders and feed them. Offering live mealworms will create a flurry of activity of birds, and some of our resident birds like chickadees and titmice will also feast on them.
Birdacious® BugBerry™ Blend or BugBerry Stackables™ are full of dried mealworms and four different kinds of fruit. They have added calcium, that helps promote stronger eggs and healthier bones for mother birds and their babies. Other birdfood choices with dried insects include our WBU BirdBugBites Suet.
Fresh and dried fruits are popular with a number of birds and help provide proper color pigments for new feathers and other nutritional needs. You'll find fruit in WBU Suet Snacks, Cranberry Fare cylinders, and in Fruit & Nut Stackables.
Peanuts are a favorite of these Red-breasted Nuthatches
5) Add Peanuts to the Menu
Loaded with protein and fat, peanuts provide birds with the necessary energy to defend territories and raise healthy families. Peanuts out of the shell are an absolute favorite of the nuthatches and Tufted Titmouse. Peanuts in the shell will be taken by jays and woodpeckers. It's especially interesting to watch jays take a whole peanut, tip back his head to send it to his crop, then take ANOTHER whole peanut before flying away to cache them.
These are five easy steps you can take this spring to help our returning and resident birds make an easier transition to warmer weather.
Based on material provided by WBU, Inc.
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