Here's a handy fall tip: While the weather is still fairly mild (and before our first heavy frost), fill a few bags of grapes and pokeweed and save them in the freezer for the birds. Put them out of the freezer in late January or February when you see that the natural food supply is depleted.

Dear Birdsquatch:

When, exactly, does fall migration start? I stopped offering seeds and suet during the summer months but want to resume in time to power up the birdies as they start their long, southbound journey.

—Beverly B., Baraboo, Wisconsin

How would you like to feed birds in the very best way possible—in a way that is all natural, environmentally sustainable, inexpensive, and easy to do? Get out the garden gloves and the garden trowel and leave the bird feeders and seed alone for a minute. The very best way to feed birds is to offer them the kinds of foods they would find and consume in nature and that starts with offering bird-friendly plants.

Dear Birdsquatch: I'm on a fixed income now that I'm retired, so I'm watching every penny. I really want to get into bird feeding, but it seems like kind of an expensive hobby. Can you give me any advice on how to attract a lot of birds without breaking the bank?

Earlier this year, wildlife authorities in some states issued advisories against bird feeding or offering birdbaths, hoping to stop the spread of a mysterious disease that killed primarily common grackles, blue jays, American robins, and European starlings. If you've taken down your feeder and stowed your bird bath away in the garage, you may be wondering how the birds will manage without your offerings, and how you'll attract them to your yard. Here's some comforting news!

During the winter, you probably enjoyed the parade of birds at your suet feeder. But now that summer is upon us, remember that raw suet can quietly spoil in the sun's heat. Here are some tips to make summer suet feeding more enjoyable.

Dear Birdsquatch:

Why is it that birds disappear from my feeders—except for a few—when I had so many up until a day or so ago?

—Diane M., Covington, Georgia

Here's one weird, but true way to help birds during nesting season: Save your eggshells and offer them to your avian visitors. Female birds need calcium—especially during egg-laying season.

A Watching Backyard Birds subscriber emailed editor Dawn Hewitt a few days ago to ask why the American goldfinches had abandoned her thistle feeder. She said she had several Nyjer (thistle) feeders that she kept full, and the finches had been abundant there until recently.

Winter may be the best time of year for backyard feeding stations, as wild food sources become scarcer. In our yard in northwestern West Virginia, we also take an extra step that is often undervalued: We spread some handfuls of mixed seed on the ground in sheltered spots where we know skulking birds hide.

This is a question we hear a lot at Watching Backyard Birds. Birders planning an extended vacation often worry about the birds that frequent their feeders. Where will they find food? If they leave, will they ever come back?

Dear Birdsquatch:

My neighbor puts popped popcorn in her bird feeder! I've seen orioles and jays fly off with it, which surprised me. It seems wrong, but what do I know? Is it all right to feed birds popcorn?

—Beth W.,
Parker, Colorado

Although it is rare—even unheard of—for humans to become sick from handling a bird feeder, there is no doubt that microorganisms flourish on their surface. That's why it's important for you to wash your hands after handling your feeders, including after refilling them. Much more of a threat are illnesses and diseases spread among the birds that visit and share feeders. To keep your feeder birds healthy, and to prevent the spread of disease, follow these steps.

Dear Birdsquatch: My daughter is trying to convince me that grape jelly is bad for orioles. They love it, and I've had 11 Baltimore orioles and 2 orchard orioles at one time in my yard—thanks to grape jelly. Is it really so bad? Should I switch to fresh fruit instead? I'd prefer to stick with what works.

—Carolyn C.,
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Hulled sunflower seed (which means "without hulls") is often sold as sunflower chips, sunflower hearts, or no-mess sunflower seeds. It is very convenient, and attracts a wide variety of species to your feeder, but it is pricey compared with black-oil sunflower seeds in the shell. Or is it?

With several types of bird food available on the market today, it's nice to have an option that offers something for everyone eating in your backyard. We've rounded up the most common ingredients of seed blends, their benefits to birds, and how to make sure you're buying the right mix for your backyard birding needs.

Would you frequent a restaurant that served your sandwich on the floor and dog food on the table? That's the human equivalent of offering birds inexpensive mixed seed in a hanging feeder. Cheap birdseed mixes usually contain a high proportion of milo, wheat, millet, and cracked corn. Such ingredients are fine for many ground-feeding birds, such as doves, blackbirds, quail, and sparrows, but not the favorite foods of birds that naturally eat above the ground, such as chickadees, nuthatches, wrens, and grosbeaks.

If you look at the contents of a birdseed mix, you might find sunflower seeds, cracked corn, or peanuts. Those are pretty well understood commodities. But you might also find millet or milo. What are they, and who eats them?

Winter: 'Tis the season for feeding birds all across North America, especially in those regions where it gets mighty cold and snowy. If you are just getting started in bird feeding, or if you are frustrated by a lack of success in attracting winter birds to your feeders, the first thing you need to determine is whether you are feeding the right foods. If you are not giving the birds what they want, you might not have many birds.

Help!!!! I read in Bird Watcher's Digest that a cage could be put around feeders to keep grackles from hogging all of the birdseed. I tried using 1x2 mesh, but cardinals wouldn't go through it. I tried painting the edges of the windows to make them easier to find. Still no luck. Any insight you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

As the weather turns chilly and migration is underway, now is the time to start offering suet once again. If you have any young backyard bird watchers in your house, this DIY recipe for suet balls makes a great craft for a rainy weekend!

We tend to think a lot about holiday meals and seasonal treats as the year winds down and the weather turns chilly. Have you ever considered if and how the changing seasons impact what birds eat? Get ready to learn about birds' four main diet types!

Here's a neat tip: Keep your seeds—and the birds visiting them—dry during showers by installing a rain guard above them.

We've all known the joy of watching birds frequent our backyard feeders. When a flock of rock pigeons moves into the neighborhood, however, you might have a problem on your hands. These birds, the feral progeny of domesticated rock doves, have a reputation for creating large amounts of acidic, property-damaging waste, and for carrying disease.

Want to try luring orioles to your feeders? Start out by catching their eye. Tie a brilliant orange ribbon or a bunch of silk flowers to your feeders.

Dear Birdsquatch: Is it really necessary to clean my feeders during winter? Doesn't cold weather kill off microbes or bacteria that might cause a problem?

Many birds prepare for the rigors of winter by adding weight in the form of fat layers. They do this by increasing their feeding rates and by seeking out fat-rich food sources. House finches—which can be a joy or a plague, depending on how many are frequenting your feeder—apparently do not use this strategy. A study of house finches at a feeder in Indiana indicates that the birds do not gain weight with the onset of cold weather.

Dear Birdsquatch: My wife and I will be spending two weeks in Ecuador this February. What if there's superfrigid weather while we're gone, or an ice storm? I'm concerned that our feeder birds will starve. Should we hire a pet sitter to come fill our bird feeders while we're away, even though we don't have pets?

To attract the widest variety of birds, offer food in more than one feeder type. An ideal feeding station has multiple feeders at varying heights, offering several types of food. Consider offering safflower seeds in a tube, a high-quality seed mix in a hopper or a platform, a peanut dispenser, sunflower hearts or bits in a dome-protected dish or satellite feeder, fruit on a tray, and/or mealworms in a shallow bowl.

There are a lot of potential answers to this question. Is your seed fresh? If you're using last year's seed, it might be stale, or hollowed out by weevils, or just plain yucky. Trying giving your feeders a good thorough cleaning and a refill with some new seed.

This winter is going to be an interesting one at bird feeding stations in the eastern half of North America: The famous Finch Forecast from Ron Pittaway in Canada is calling for a southward movement of northern finches. According to various reports, the natural crop of seeds and fruits from birch, alder, spruce, fir, pine, and mountain ash trees is below normal amounts across most of eastern Canada, which will force grosbeaks, siskins, redpolls, crossbills, and purple finches to move south in search of food.

If you get the chance, take a good look at a woodpecker's tail feathers. From the dinky downy to the massive pileated, woodpecker tail feathers are unlike the feathers on the bird's body or wings: They're super strong and rigid, and collectively serve as a stable prop against a tree trunk as a woodpecker hammers it with its bill.

William Gorman, who lives in a wooded area near Albany, New York, rakes up acorns and saves them to feed wild turkeys. The birds are such regular visitors that he has experimented with their food preferences, also offering cracked corn, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, rice, and more.

Nyjer, or thistle seed, is that tiny, black, oil-rich seed best known for attracting goldfinches to backyards across North America. Nyjer is typically offered in special tube feeders with tiny slots or in mesh sock feeders. Here are a few things that every feeding station manager should know about this popular backyard food.

Whether you're just getting started in backyard bird feeding or looking to revisit your existing feeding program, this quick overview will help point you toward establishing a backyard cafe that's sure to be the talk of the neighborhood (among the birds, anyway).

Dear Birdsquatch: I know you love blueberry pie, and I've heard that orioles love grape jelly. I'm partial to strawberry jelly, though. Is it okay to feed orioles jelly other than grape?

Dear Birdsquatch: The snow just melted in my backyard and there's a super nasty pile of seed hulls and bird poop below my feeders. Any idea how I can clean this up? Would you be willing to come and take care of it if I baked you a pie?

We typically think of the best bird feeding seasons as fall and winter, but it is actually early spring when birds could use the bit of help that our feeders may give them. Two full seasons after the blooming and growing months of summer have ended, natural food supplies will be gone or nearly so. Berries, nuts, seeds, insects, flower nectar, buds, and other natural foods that birds eat will not yet be available or even growing in the cold-winter parts of North America. This makes spring feeding a wonderful opportunity for fans of backyard birds.

Dear Birdsquatch: This winter I started feeding my bluebirds homemade suet dough. They really love it! But I recently read somewhere that too much suet can actually be bad for birds. Is this true?

Dear Birdsquatch: What do insect-eating species like bluebirds and phoebes eat in the winter? Here in northern Georgia we can get some very cold winter weather, which I'm sure eliminates most of the insect population, yet I often see eastern bluebirds and eastern phoebes around all winter long.

Winter: 'Tis the season for feeding birds all across North America, especially in those regions where it gets mighty cold and snowy. If you are just getting started in bird feeding, or if you are frustrated by a lack of success in attracting winter birds to your feeders, the first thing you need to determine is whether you are feeding the right foods. If you are not giving the birds what they want, you might not have many birds.

Dear Birdsquatch: It seems like I spend a blue million dollars on birdseed every month. I love the woodpeckers and have a nice variety of them at the feeder—even an occasional red-headed—but the blackbirds and house sparrows are eating me out of house and home. Is there something I can do to attract only woodpeckers and, you know, the sweet little birds like chickadees and cardinals, but not starlings or grackles or house sparrows?

This is a question that birdfeeding enthusiasts have asked themselves and others over the decades. Since backyard bird-feeding exploded as an activity in the early 1980s with the advent of commercially produced feeders and commercially packaged bird seed (along with the development of black-oil sunflower seed as a bird-feeding staple) we’ve all expanded our backyard offerings to include more varieties of seed/food and feeders. But is there such a thing as too many feeders?

Ants are a common problem at nectar feeders, but a problem with an easy solution: An ant moat! Ants can't swim, so by hanging an ant moat above your nectar feeder, you block their travel route. While the ant problem is easily resolved, bees at the nectar feeder present a more difficult challenge.

Whether you're just getting started in backyard bird feeding or looking to revisit your existing feeding program, this quick overview will help point you toward establishing a backyard cafe that's sure to be the talk of the neighborhood (among the birds, anyway).

WBB's very own bigfoot, who knows what birds want more than any mere human, addresses housing and feeding: Is it OK to feed birds in the summer? And when is the right time to put out a birdhouse? Good timing on both answers, big guy!

Our tall, hairy, and slightly stinky columnist answers reader questions about feeding suet dough, why nest boxes might fail, and pizza. Birdsquatch loves pizza.

When the cold weather and dreary days seem to be dragging on, a change in routine can renew your energy. Why not make a change that rejuvenates your backyard birds as well? Mealworms aren't just for bluebirds! Putting out mealworms in addition to your regular offerings can attract cardinals, chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, sparrows, woodpeckers, mockingbirds, wrens—even the occasional warbler, oriole, vireo, and tanager.

Peanuts are a vital part of a winter feeding program. They offer a great, high-protein boost to birds weary of cold weather, and help insect-eaters like wrens, woodpeckers, and sometimes even sapsuckers make it through a frigid period, or when ice or deep snow make foraging extra challenging.

When winter weather comes we all want to do everything we can to provide for our backyard birds. High-energy foods such as suet dough are super attractive to a wide array of species. It can also attract creepers, bluebirds, and shy woodland species that do not normally visit our bird feeders. However, it's important that we don't over feed fatty foods because too much of a good thing can cause health problems for our beloved birds.

Here's a tip to attract birds in winter! The late John Trott was a wonderful naturalist, writer, photographer, and teacher—and former contributing photographer to Bird Watcher's Digest—who lived in northern Virginia. When age and weather made it difficult for him to go afield to photograph birds, John would bring the birds close to his house. One of his most successful methods for attracting birds was to offer them foods in winter that they could not find naturally at that season.

If you're looking to add a new suet feeder to your backyard feeding station, there are many considerations. Which ones are the most affordable? Which ones are best for the birds you want to attract? Find tips from the staff of Watching Backyard Birds!

Suet is the dense, white fat that collects around the kidneys and loins of cattle. It is often sold in grocery stores at the meat counter—raw. It's fine—and very affordable—to offer chunks of raw suet to birds, but it spoils quickly, so plan to offer small bits often. Raw suet melts easily, too, so in bright sun, it can become a putrifying mess.

Suet is a high-energy treat for so many bird species, and can bring in some birds that aren't interested in seeds. During cool or cold weather, it's easy and convenient to load a cake into a suet feeder and refill when empty. Birds can continue to enjoy the nutritional benefits of suet through the hottest days of summer, but it must be offered more cautiously, and usually, in smaller quantities.

If I were to pick only one food to offer at my feeding station, it would be sunflower hearts. Yes, they're expensive, but a bag of sunflower hearts (no shells, just the meat of the seed) lasts more than three times as long as a bag of seeds with shells.

When I was in college, my biology instructor, while showing us how to set live traps for small mammals, referred to peanut butter as "the universal bait." "You can catch anything from an elephant to a shrew with peanut butter," he stated.

Feed your birds suet. While most humans don’t want a lot of fat in their diet, for birds in winter, fat is an excellent source of energy. Suet is, simply, fat. More specifically, it’s the fat that forms around the kidneys of beef cattle. Butchers remove this stuff, and back when every neighborhood had a butcher shop, they used to give it away to bird watchers. Then grocery stores got smart and started selling suet.

As the weather turns cold and snowy, not all birds will venture to your feeder. Some prefer to skulk in the thickets, brambles, and other secure places. To better accommodate these species, consider tossing a few handfuls of mixed seed, sunflower bits, peanuts, or cracked corn under your deck, in your hedges and bushes, or even along the edge of a wooded area.

When winter weather comes we all want to do everything we can to provide for our backyard birds. But sometimes our offerings can be too much of a good thing. It's important that we don't over feed fatty foods because too much of a good thing can cause health problems for our beloved birds.

WBB contributor Bob Heltman noted that the pileated woodpeckers visiting his suet feeder would fold themselves into a "C" shape when partaking from the offerings in the metal mesh cage. The birds looked awkward and uncomfortable. He began to wonder if a board attached to the suet holder would give a more comfortable perch for these big birds.

Would you frequent a restaurant that served your sandwich on the floor and dog food on the table? That's the human equivalent of offering birds inexpensive mixed seed in a hanging feeder. Cheap birdseed mixes usually contain a high proportion of milo, wheat, millet, and cracked corn. Such ingredients are fine for many ground-feeding birds, such as doves, blackbirds, quail, and sparrows, but not the favorite foods of birds that naturally eat above the ground, such as chickadees, nuthatches, wrens, and grosbeaks.

When you make your breakfast eggs, save the eggshells! We can hear you asking: "What? Why?" The answer is they are a great addition to your bird-feeding program.

Hulled sunflower seed (which means "without hulls") is often sold as sunflower chips, sunflower hearts, or no-mess sunflower seeds. It is very convenient, and attracts a wide variety of species to your feeder, but is pricy compared with black-oil sunflower seeds in the shell. Or is it?

The seeds of evening primrose can be a valuable food source for birds in cold climates throughout North America. Each flower produces hundreds of seeds, and when the flower dies, it holds on to some and drops others. The stalks of dead evening primrose are "Eat Here" signs to songbirds, marking a likely food source at the base.

As you scrape out pumpkin guts for a pie or jack-o'-lantern, don't throw away the seeds! Don't even compost them! Squash seeds of any sort, including pumpkins, are a high protein treat for birds.

Peanuts out of their shells are a great attractant for chickadees, nuthatches, titmice, and woodpeckers. Feed them in a mesh onion bag, in a wire suet feeder, or in a feeder specifically designed for offering shelled peanuts to wild birds.

Winter can bring more northerly sparrows into your yard. Here's how you can make your yard more inviting for native sparrows.

We're taking an informal survey of our readers: Are you noticing a reduced number of northern cardinals at your feeders? Several staffers here at BWD/WBB headquarters are finding very few cardinals at their feeders. Please share your cardinal report with us! Are your cardinal numbers lower, higher, or about the same as last year? And please tell us where you're located.

As a science teacher, I am always looking for ways to get people interested in science and the natural world, so I periodically invite groups down to my "camp" in Keister, West Virginia, on the Greenbrier River. Because my students and friends showed an interest in birds, I put up a small feeder filled with sunflower seed. Sure enough, the feeder attracted birds—so many, in fact, that I had to refill the feeder a couple of times a week.

You may not think of turkeys, quail, and other upland gamebirds as backyard birds, but in many areas of North America, birders can easily lure these species to their backyard feeding stations.

Nyjer, or thistle seed, is that tiny, black, oil-rich seed best known for attracting goldfinches to backyards across North America. Nyjer is typically offered in special tube feeders with tiny slots or in mesh sock feeders. Here are a few things that every feeding station manager should know about this popular backyard food.

Research on the impact of bird feeding has shown that feeders can sometimes be a source of disease for the birds visiting them. There is good news, too: With minimal effort, it's easy to provide a safe, healthy feeding station for birds.

Whether you're just getting started in backyard bird feeding or looking to revisit your existing feeding program, this quick overview will help point you toward establishing a backyard cafe that's sure to be the talk of the neighborhood (among the birds, anyway).

Our bird feeding chart provides general food preferences for the most common feeder birds of North America. Although there are no guaranteed methods for attracting certain birds to your feeders, the presence of water, adaquate habitat or cover, and the birds' preferred foods will enhance the attractiveness of your yard. Foods are listed in approximate order of preference.