Helping our feathered friends through cold winter months

With a percent forest cover in London lower than that which is advised as suitable to sustain the needs of native species, it is important for us to provide food and habitat to native species wherever we can.

Here are a few tips on how you can help provide for birds overwintering in London:

Habitat

• If you provide an appropriate nest box, nesting platform or roosting box, wild birds will eagerly move in. Innappropriate construction and/or placement or the use of some commercially sold boxes may actually increase rates of predation or other threats to wild birds. Search the internet for details on appropriate materials, sizing and placement for your target species or to buy premade nestboxes that are constructed to consider these details.
• Leaving dead vegetation standing over the winter (vines, flowers, grasses, etc.) will provide shelter to birds in the winter as well as nesting material in the spring.
• A brush pile will provide overwintering shelter to birds, small mammals, reptiles, amphibians and insects.

Food

• Stock feeders with high energy seeds and nuts to help birds survive the cold winter months. Different feeder styles and seed will be appropriate for different bird species. A great local supplier of a variety of seed and feeders is Wild Birds Unlimited located on Sprinbank Dr. just east of Wonderland Rd.

Did you know???

Wild Birds Unlimited offers a 10% discount off regularly priced stock

to Friends of the Coves members

• Make homemade feeding stations using a pine cone or other recycled object covered in peanut butter or suet from the butcher then rolled in seed or nuts.   
• The best food you can provide for wild birds is the food they would naturally eat. This summer plan to plant native plant species which will provide food in the form of: rosehips (ex. Smooth wild rose or Swamp rose), berries (ex. Staghorn sumac, Red osier dogwood, Virginia creeper, Black cherry, Chokeberry, Red or Black raspberry, Nannyberry, High bush cranberry), seeds (ex. Sugar maple, Silver maple, Yellow birch, Black eyed susans, Pale purple coneflower, Asters, Goldenrods) or nuts (ex. Bitternut hickory, Black walnut, Red oak).
• Leave dead vegetation standing over the winter (perennials, grasses, etc.) to provide winter seed sources.
• Leave dead leaves under trees and shrubs to provide ideal spots for birds to forage for insects and worms. 
• Put out a bowl of warm water each day for birds to drink and bath.  

This Red-bellied woodpecker is a regular visiter to the peanut wreath feeder in Lynn Morris's Erie Ave. backyard

return to the previous page