How to Help Birds Prepare for Cold Weather

While the species you attract depends on your location, there are some common feeding principles to help birds prepare for cold weather —

Fill hang-tubes with sunflower seeds such as black oil sunflower seeds. This provides chickadees, titmice, goldfinches, and many other songbirds with a perch, with the food they prefer. Personally, I go through several tubes a day during extreme cold weather. Refill the tubes often if you have a lot of birds. Also, it’s good practice to clean your bird feeders once every two weeks to prevent the spread of diseases.

Scatter cracked or whole corn on the ground for corvids (crows, ravens, and jays) and blackbirds. Even wild turkeys come into my yard for corn. In fact, corn attracts a variety of other animals such as deer, so beware. If you don’t want deer, opossums, and raccoons in your yard at night, don’t put out more corn than will be eaten by your birds during the day.
Juncos, sparrows, cardinals, and others prefer to scratch on the ground or in low-lying areas for their food. If you use a wild bird mix either use a flat feeder or just spread the food on the ground. When it is snowing, put more food out if it gets covered by the snowfall. Don’t let old food build up or get moldy as this can make birds sick. As with tube-feeders, clean flat feeders routinely, and if you spread the mix on the ground, change the location occasionally.
Suet in hanging feeders is good for woodpeckers, nuthatches, and wrens. Many birds will eat suet, so don’t be surprised if you see a blue jay or chickadee on your feeders, too. Suet feeders should be cleaned frequently, as well.