Time to start winter feeding of your local songbirds

This year has just rushed by-we have been busy with studio improvements, new products, shows, and oh yes, trying to keep up with our wildlife refuge, AKA our 2 acre property.

We had our first frost overnight, and this brings me to my topic, winter feeding of your wild birds. Paul & I are huge fans of Black Oil Sunflower seed (just ask our local seed supplier!), but we are in a current wrangling match with our resident chipmunks. We have often encouraged our customers who were dealing with rapacious squirrels to toss their seeds with tobasco & cayenne pepper. It won't hurt the birds or even bother them, but it makes mammals pretty unhappy. I put some hot pepper suet out yesterday, and am mixing a batch of "hot" seeds up today.

We also leave lots of our flowers to fully go to seed. This gives the birds natural feeding stations throughout the yard. Of course we augment those with our natural log feeders-the birds just love them!