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Many of the activities on these pages may require adult supervision.
Be sure to tell a grown-up about what you're planning and ask for permission before getting started.

In the wintertime.

What Birds Eat

Some birds eat seeds, some eat insects, and some eat both. If you put out birdseed (you can buy it at the grocery store), you will attract birds such as blue jays, nuthatches, cardinals, sparrows, and chickadees. If you want to attract woodpeckers, orioles, and tanagers, which are insect-eating birds, you have to provide an insect substitute, such as suet (beef or sheep fat) or peanut butter.

If you live where winters are snowy, you can have fun feeding winter birds. One thing must be remembered: once you start feeding birds, you must keep on feeding them until springtime and keep on feeding
them every winter. They will come to depend on you.

Cookie-Tin Feeder

Nail a small cookie tin outside your window. (Be sure you have permission first.) Each day open the window and put some bird seed or suet on the tray. Clean the tray off if it gets dirty. You can also put a dish of fresh water out daily for the birds.

Bleach-Bottle Feeder

Carefully cut away four windows from a bleach bottle. Sandpaper the rough edges or cover them with strong waterproof tape. Make a hole in the cap of the bottle by hammering a fat nail through it. Remove the nail. Put a string through the nail hole and tie a big knot. Put the cap on the bottle tightly. Tie the other end of the string to a branch.

Suet Feeders

Ask a butcher for some suet. It is either free or very inexpensive. Stuff the suet into a plastic berry basket and nail it to a tree as high as you can reach. Another way to fasten suet to a tree is to tie it on tightly.
Remember: Once you start feeding suet to the birds, keep on doing so.

Bird Pudding

Here's another way to feed suet-loving birds. Mix together a sticky mess of peanut butter and oatmeal or peanut butter and birdseed. Smear it on a pinecone. Hang the pinecone from a branch with string.

Sunflowers

Grow some sunflowers in the summer and leave them for the birds to eat.

Doughnut Treat

Make a hole in a jar lid by hammering a fat nail through it. Do the same to another jar lid. Remove the nail.
Now take a strong piece of twine and thread it through one jar lid, a doughnut, and the other jar lid. Tie a big, strong knot at the end. Suspend from a branch.

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