Stop By My Place and Have a Drink!!

Love watching birds in your yard? Providing water, especially during the winter is the best way to attract birds. Believe it or not, they are more attracted to water in your yard than by food. Besides, water allows you to watch so many different habits: you’ll find that some birds stick their bills in the water and seem as though they are sipping through a straw, others will fill their bills then put their bills in the air so gravity helps them swallow. They are so fun to watch bathing and playing. You will also see so many behaviors we see in humans; some are bullies and will NOT share the bird bath no matter how big it is others seem to think the more birds, the bigger the party.


Birds need water every day, even when all the water is frozen. They can get it from snow or from food, but it takes a lot of energy to melt snow inside a bird’s body. That's energy the bird would otherwise use to stay warm through a freezing night. Providing ice-free water for drinking and feather maintenance can be life-saving for birds.

Water sources may be kept ice-free by an immersible electric heater that goes right into the birdbath water. My heater turns off when the outside temperature is warmer and if the water level gets below the level of the heater. Even when snow has the yard buried in winter the birdbath stays unfrozen. I get mourning doves, finches, flickers, robins, pine siskins and of course the odd deer or two.

I am fortunate. I work from my home and my birdbath is right outside my office window. In face if the glass weren't there I could probably reach out the window and touch it. When that first storm is blowing in, they show up. Hungry. Chirpy and chattery. Red and brown and grey and white and yellow. Fun to look at on a cold winter day.