Mar 21, 2018 | Featured in: Watching Backyard Birds, April 2018

Strange—But Useful—Ways to Help Birds This Spring

Have you ever tried feeding eggshells to birds? Females especially need them during nesting season to replenish the calcium needed to produce eggs.
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Eggshells for the Birds

Save your eggshells and offer them to the birds. Female birds need calcium—especially during egg-laying season. When cooking, save the empty, rinsed-out egg shells in the refrigerator in a jar or plastic container. After you've accumulated a dozen or so, bake them on a cookie sheet at 350 degrees for half an hour to kill any residual bacteria. When the shells have cooled, crush them into small bits and offer them to the birds on a platform feeder; toss them on a roof; or scatter them on a deck railing or sidewalk.

Leave a Log

The combination of wood, water, and soil creates gold for the birds, in the form of invertebrates attracted to the decaying wood. Leave a log on a bare spot in the corner of your yard. You'll create a nursery for the kinds of critters lots of birds prefer to feed their nestlings and fledglings.

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