A lot of the winter garden is watching birds. Snow is on the ground, I clear it off the greenhouse roof and dust off the top of fragile bushes with a broom, and then I feed the birds.

I feed blue bird food all year round because I now have two mated pairs of resident bluebirds. During the warmer weather and regular garden growing season I feed them those freeze dried mealy worms that chickens also love. But during the winter I feed them this bluebird food that are little pellets (suet nuggets basically) and it’s no waste etc. Blue Jays and woodpeckers also love the winter blue bird food.

For the other birds my husband keeps the feeders full of black oil sunflower seed. However, I also give them something extra, and it’s something the ground birds especially love: safflower seed. It’s something you use in tree feeders or are you put out in a saucer, or as you see in the little video above I also just put it out on the frozen patio table. A bonus with safflower seed is squirrels do not like to eat it, so the birds get it all.

However the cycle of nature being what it is feeding the winter birds also means I get visits from the hawks. And sometimes the Hawks just hang out. That you can see in the last photo in this post.

Happy Valentine’s Day!