Seasons – September 2022

By Danielle Belleny, Plateau Staff Biologist II

Attracting birds to your yard can be a fun and exciting activity for all ages to participate in. With fall and winter bird migrations just around the corner, providing a few essential items for birds can turn your yard into a choice rest stop. You and your family will have many opportunities to watch and listen to the feathered visitors while they feed, drink, and rest their wings before heading further south.

Here are 5 tips to attract some common fall & winter visitors:

1. Provide feeders – Providing a regular source of food is the first step to attracting birds to your yard. Bird feeders come in a variety of shapes and features. Selecting the right one for your home is a matter of personal choice. You can evenmake your own bird feeders using recycled materials from home. Go a step further and experiment with seed mixes to see if food type changes the species that visit. Feeders can bring unexpected species together!
2. Provide water – On both hot and cold days, water is needed for birds to survive. Due to the lack of rain in the winter, water sources can be difficult to come by. Provide birds fresh water in a shallow dish. Include a log or large stone in the dish so that bathing birds can climb out of the water dish easily. On days where the temperature is near freezing, it is important to make sure the water doesn’t freeze.
3. Provide shelter – After making such long migratory flights, exhausted birds are in search of a safe place to land. Provide sources of shelter like bushes, patches of un-mowed grass, piles of brush, or trees to protect birds from harsh weather and predators. These sources of shelter can also provide seeds, berries, and insects for the birds to eat.
4. Regularly clean feeders and water – Outdoor bird feeders with dry seed should be cleaned weekly with 9 parts water to 1 part bleach. Feeders should be cleaned more often if there is any moisture from rain, ice, or snow. To keep your water dishes and birdbaths fresh, just rinse and scrub it with nine parts water, one part vinegar. Skip the synthetic soaps and cleansers; they can strip the essential oils off of bird feathers. Concentrated areas that have frequent visitors could potentially accumulate harmful bacteria or viruses that negatively impact wildlife. Cleaning feeders regularly helps prevent the spread of disease. Wash your hands after handling bird supplies.
5. Keep track of visitors – Stay vigilant and set aside a regular time that you and your family can observe the birds that stop by. Keep a log of the species observed at your feeder and the dates you encountered them. If you have trouble identifying a bird, try taking a photo and emailing it to our biologists to assist. Additionally, mobile apps like Merlin Bird ID are able to identify birds from the photos in your camera roll. Merlin Bird ID can also identify birds singing around you and show real-time suggestions for who’s singing. Other apps like Audubon Bird Guide App have large libraries of bird sounds and images to further help you identify birds.

Here are 4 species Texans all over can expect to see in their yards this fall and winter:

Northern Cardinal – Among the most abundant species on the continent, the Northern Cardinal is a brightly colored bird sure to grab anyone’s attention. Adult male cardinals have the characteristic ruby–red feathers and black-masked faces. The feather color of cardinals, and most other birds with reds, oranges, and yellow feathers, derives from the keratin pigments in their food sources. Male cardinals that eat high–quality red-colored berries become even more vibrant. Female cardinals and juvenile cardinals have an overall greyish-tan color with flashes of red on the margins of their wings and tails. Both sexes have the prominent crest atop their heads.

Carolin wren – The Carolina Wrens are shy, year-round residents that frequent homes and gardens during the day. They energetically hop through bushes, climb along tree trunks, and flip over fallen leaves in search of insects and spiders, the bulk of the wren’s diet. Wrens have a loud and varied repertoire, making them more likely to be heard before they are sighted. The entire song usually lasts less than 2 seconds and the notes are usually described as three-parted, as a repeated teakettle or “Ger-man-y”. Males and females have nearly identical plumage and usually mate for life.

Cedar Waxwing – The Cedar Waxwing is named for the red, wax-like droplets on the tips of adult bird flight feathers. Additionally, adults have sharp black face masks edged with white, black chin-patches, and pale-yellow belly feathers. Cedar Waxwings love sugary fruits, like Ashe Juniper berries, which dominate the diet of this bird. In fall and winter, these birds gather by the hundreds to eat berries, filling the air with their high, thin, whistles. Cedar Waxwings can eat naturally fermented berries still attached to Ashe Juniper. In fact, they sometimes overindulge on fermented berries, causing unusual and laughable bird behavior.

Pine Siskins  – In the winter, they are visitors at feeders across Texas, however, Pine Siskins are an irruptive species, meaning their numbers in a given locality are unpredictable from one year to the next due to the annual variation in the distribution and abundance of seeds that make up the bulk of their diet. Pine Siskins flock to thistle and other small seeds such as millet or hulled sunflower seeds. Be on the lookout for exceptionally streaky, small-billed bird at your feeder. Also, listen for their distinctive call which sounds like slowly tearing a sheet of paper in two.