Backyard Birding
Turn your backyard into a bird haven with tips on feeders, habitats, and attracting your favorite species.
Feeders and Food
Common Backyard Feeder Problems (and How to Solve Them!)
Bird feeding provides enjoyment to millions of North Americans each year. However, this hobby we all enjoy comes with its own challenges….
Feeding Eggshells
The Shell Game One of the lesser-known ways to attract birds is by putting out eggshells. Female birds, drained of calcium by…
Top 10 Weird Things to Feed Birds
A male Baltimore oriole visits a feeder offering grape jelly. Photo by Tammy Simmons. Sunflower seed may be the hamburger of the…
Backyard Tips: How to Make Your Own Hummingbird Nectar
Hungry hummingbirds sip at a backyard feeder. Photo by J. Quinn. ’Tis the season for hummingbirds! Hanging a hummingbird feeder in your…
Feeders and Feeding: Keep Your Seed Fresh
Keep Your Seed Fresh With a ‘First In First Out’ Technique Tube-type feeders are favorites of backyard bird watchers, goldfinches, and pine…
Top 10 Reasons to Love Suet Dough
I first became aware of the powers of peanut butter suet dough when Carrie Griffis of Port Orchard, Washington, sent us photographs…
Successful Winter (and Year-round) Backyard Bird Feeding
I’ve always been fascinated by birds, and my efforts to feed them is a win-win: They get to eat, and I get…
A Recipe for Suet Dough
This peanut butter and lard suet dough recipe from Julie Zickefoose is popular with woodpeckers, jays, titmice, nuthatches, chickadees, sparrows, towhees, cardinals,…
Hummingbird Feeding Tips
Ruby-throated hummingbird (male). Photo by Bill Thompson, III Find me a person who does not like hummingbirds. I’ll bet you can’t. Even…
DIY Projects
Build Your Own: Easy Platform Feeder
Attract Birds and Protect Seed With a Simple and Effective Feeder Design The more places birds can feed in your yard, the…
Build Your Own: Build a Brush Pile
Create a winter shelter for wildlife in your backyard High on the list of important microhabitats you can create for wildlife in…
Do It Yourself: Bird Bath Heater
Keep your birdbath water warm all winter long When winter comes to our farm, the daily ritual of feeding our birds intensifies…
Do-it-yourself Pipe House
A new use for PVC pipe! by A.J. Hamler, excerpted from the March/April 2011 issue of Bird Watcher’s Digest Many do-it-yourselfers use…
Backyard Tips: How to Make Your Own Hummingbird Nectar
Hungry hummingbirds sip at a backyard feeder. Photo by J. Quinn. ’Tis the season for hummingbirds! Hanging a hummingbird feeder in your…
These Recipes Are for the Birds!
The holiday season means lots of different things, like Christmas Bird Counts, family gatherings, and food—lots of food! As you busily prepare…
Do It Yourself: Birdbath Tips
Easy Drippers We know that water in motion attracts birds, and I’ve discovered an inexpensive, easy way to add a dripper to…
Do-It-Yourself Stovepipe Predator Baffle
Materials: Aluminum electrical conduit, ½-inch diameter, 5-foot length Iron rebar, ½-inch diameter, 5-foot length One hanger iron (two 7-inch strips attached with…
Build Your Own: Bird Bath Fountain
Birdbath and fountain: sound and motion make for special allure A home-made garden sculpture at a fraction of the retail cost. A…
Hummingbirds
Tips for Identifying Hummingbirds
Identifying a hummingbird is very similar to identifying other bird species—if the hummer is sitting or hovering in one place long enough…
Myths About Hummingbirds
One of the most persistent myths in the world of birds is that hummingbirds migrate on the backs of larger, stronger birds. On…
Praying Mantis: Hummingbird Predator
Though we tend to think of hummingbirds as cute, dainty little things, in reality they make bold and fierce competitors. They don’t…
How to Revive a Faded Hummingbird Feeder
Each spring when I pull my hummingbird feeders out of storage in anticipation of the hummingbirds’ return, the red parts of the…
Top 10 Things You Can Do to Attract Hummingbirds
1. Add a new native plant species to your garden. You just can’t have too many good hummingbird plants in your garden…
Red Food Coloring and Hummingbirds
What about red food coloring in hummingbird nectar? Is it harmful? I decided to research this question when an injured hummingbird came…
Bees and Wasps at Nectar Feeders
Just like hummingbirds, bees, wasps, yellow jackets, and other stinging things love sugar water. In late summer, they can swarm a nectar…
Hummingbird Resources
The Hummingbird Society – The Hummingbird Society is a nonprofit charitable organization that strives to teach about hummingbirds and works to prevent…
Readers Ask: When Should I Put Up My Hummingbird Feeder?
It’s that time of year when we start hearing the perennial question: When should I put out my hummingbird feeder? Here in…
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