Feeding Winter Birds In Ohio

It’s that time of year again when we’re all trying to get the perfect Christmas tree. But what about winter birds? Winter is a tough time for them, and they can’t eat or find food outside properly. Today we are going to talk about feeding winter birds in Ohio.

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If you’re planning to feed winter in your area, there could be many other things you should know as well. Like what food you can provide to your avian friends, the best feeders during the winter, which birds are usual in Ohio, which foods will bring more visitors to your food station, etc.

What Food You Can Offer to the Winter Birds in Ohio

If you’re a regular visitor of our site, you know we have covered other states’ winter bird feeding guidelines too. From our research and observation, we found the foods are highly similar to one another. And some common foods can be fed to almost any state you’re from or trying to feed. These are:

All the foods mentioned are the most common and popular foods for winter birds in every state. However, whatever food you choose, it could be from our list or not; it needs to contain an amazing amount of protein.

Apart from those mentioned above, you can always find something interesting in your local pet store. And making something in your kitchen to feed the winter birds is naturally a great idea.

Also, a few renowned brands supply excellent quality commercial bird foods for birds around the world. Here’s a high-quality bird food that is rich in protein and other necessary ingredients.

What are the Best Winter Bird Feeders for Ohio

Many feeders are available on online and offline markets as well. And some people are interested and capable of making one of their own, which is great. But as we are working on winter bird feeding throughout the country, we learned and found some do better than others.

A lot of options are available for choosing a bird feeder for your food station. But, whether you’re making one your own, or trying to purchase one for feeding winter birds in Ohio, here’s are our five recommended types of feeders to from:

#Ground Feeder:

Ground feeders are the best for the birds that prefer ground foraging, like Doves, Juncos, House finch, and Sparrows. And the opportunistic birds like Cardinals, Towhees, and Jays will also visit this type of feeder with proper foods. Ground feeder helps to prevent food spoilage and keep the debris off the ground.

Apart from those, it’s easy to dispose of, clean, refill, and disinfecting procedure. It can be put or set up anywhere near the ground or with plain space. Leaky bottoms help the water pass through and let the bird foods dry easily after rain or snow.

Also, you can use them with a roof or without the roof. Using safflower, millet, and corn will bring the highest number of birds to your food station while keeping the squirrels out from it.

With a ground feeder in your backyard, you can expect Grouse, Quail, Roadrunners, Anis, Thrashers, Ovenbirds, waterthrushes, Starlings, Mynas, Grackles, Doves, Pigeons, Sparrows, Towhees, juncos, Grosbeak, Cardinals, Buntings, Larks, Pipits, Wagtails, Robins, Bluebirds, Parrots, and Northern flickers.

Finding a good feeder could be difficult sometimes. Keeping our reader’s best interest in mind, we recommend this ground feeder that you can try.

#Hopper Feeder:

Feeding wild birds in winter a hopper feeder is a favorable option. Unlike the open-end feeders, the hopper feeder keeps the bird foods together. This feeder is also great for keeping things tidy and sanitary.

However, hopper feeders can’t prevent spoilage like a ground feeder. Consequently, we recommend buying one with a broad tray in the bottom. Also, to keep the water and snow-free, you should add a shade to it.

Seeds are the ultimate choice for filling a hopper feeder. And the expected birds that may visit your feeders are Cardinals, Grosbeaks, Sparrows, Finches, Mourning Doves, Red-winged Blackbirds, Buntings, Chickadees, and Titmice.

There’re a lot of Hopper feeders available in the market. But if you want our opinion, we suggest this bird feeder for you.

#Suet Feeder:

Suet feeder is perfect for the winter period. It’s a solid chunk of food that is kept in a square wire cage. So, the birds can peck on it a little by little. You can add bird seeds and dried bugs along with a suet cake. Woodpeckers love suet cake in the bird feeder.
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A suet cake is made of hard fat of loins and kidneys in raw beef or mutton. It’s a great source of protein, and the recipes are similar to puddings and candles. This is an ideal bird feeder during the winter. In summer, it would melt and make a big mess.

Also, if your area has sun coming up and produces a good amount of heat during the winter, you need to set up the suet feeder in a shaded location and lower the temperature. All types of woodpeckers will come to the suet feeders.

Apart from them – Baltimore Oriole, Black-Headed Grosbeak, Brown Thrasher, Eastern Bluebird, European Robin, Gray Catbird, Hooded Oriole, Northern Cardinal, Northern Mockingbird, Orchard Oriole, Varied Thrush, Chickadees, tits, nuthatches, wrens, Black-Billed Magpie, Blue Jay, Clark’s Nutcracker, European Starling, American Robin, Black-capped Chickadee, Titmouse, Brown Creeper, Bushtit, Chickadee, and finches will visit the suet feeder occasionally.

From our experience, we recommend picking up a suet feeder with extra spaces for other foods. So, it’ll bring more visitors to your food station. Moreover, this is our recommended suet feeder, if you’re looking for one.

#Thistle Feeder in Winter:

Thistle feeder is an excellent choice for feeding winter birds in Ohio. It is designed for dispensing niger seeds (also known as Nyjer). A thistle feeder is a sort of thistle sock that is made from an open weave fabric. It’s also called a finch feeder.

However, thistle feeder’s construction can be varied to one another. Some are made from a plastic tubes with dispensing holes. Or, a metal body with a mesh screen is common for thistle feeders. The metal and plastic thistle feeders are similar to tube feeders.

Foods stay in the feeder until the birds pick them. It’s a good feeder for the winter season that is easy to clean, sanitize, refill, and transfer to different locations.

Thistle feeders especially attract colorful birds in the winter. The usual visitors you can expect in your feeder are- American goldfinches, California quail, Common redpolls, Dark-eyed juncos, European goldfinches, Hoary redpolls, House finches, Indigo buntings, Lesser goldfinches, Mourning doves, Pine siskins, Purple Finches, and Song sparrows.

If you want our opinion about thistle feeder, here’s our choice to buy one online.

#Tube Feeder:

One of my favorite bird feeders for the winter season. I always prefer a tube feeder for feeding winter birds in most states. It’s a container-type bird feeder with a removable cap. Tube feeder has built-in ports for dispensing foods.

This feeder keeps the foods clean, fresh, and dry for extended periods. The tube feeder is a vertical hanging feeder with an arm or two. The construction material is either hard plastic or acrylic materials.

Tube feeder is a well-constructed feeder that will do great in winter and keep the foods intact for a long time. It does not hold much snow or rain. Therefore, it’s an excellent pick for feeding winter birds.

Moreover, the common visitors to tube feeders include Grosbeaks, Sparrows, Titmice, Chickadees, Lesser goldfinches, American goldfinches, house finches, and other small bird species.

However, if you’re trying to get a new tube feeder for your food station, here’s a great product that may interest you.

Well, that’s all about our winter feeder recommendation and guideline. However, we want you to add in your food station a birdbath with a proper heater that can stay active in the winter.

Without water access, birds will need to find a different location. And we know it’s not an easy thing during the snowy days. Moreover, your birdbath will freeze up if you don’t apply a heater to the water drinkable.

Therefore, if you want our recommendation for a birdbath, check this product that is rustproof and not harmful to the environment.

And, for the heater that can perform well during snowy days, check this one.

The Reasons behind the Feeding winter Birds in Ohio

Since the weather temperature or condition slightly varies from one location to another. We picked Columbus to discuss the overall weather condition in Ohio. The warmest month here is July, and the lowest temperature is in January.

The highest temperature in January is around 33.4 Â°F. And the normal low temperature is around 21.6 Â°F. October to February are the coldest months of the year. Moreover, these months have usual snowfall.

As you can notice in the graph, the highest snowfall in Ohio is in February, which is around 3.31″. Starting from early October, it continues to early April. However, the average snowfall in January is about 3.03″ (which is the coldest month of the year.

On average, it snows 13 days in Columbus of Ohio, in a month. And this is enough to make nature dry and reduce the natural food source for the birds in the winter.

If food and water are scarce, birds usually lower their activity to save strength and body temperature. So, some of the bird species migrate to a warmer region to spend the winter. Therefore, our little ones can help them to have a better winter.

Also, another important reason why we feed the birds on a snowy day. It’s a pleasure that brings to our hearts their presence on those cold days.

Which are the Most Usual Winter Birds in Ohio

Name of the Bird	November	December	January	February
Northern Cardinal	88	89	90	93
Downy Woodpecker	83	88	86	81
House Finch	80	80	82	80
Dark-eyed Junco	78	81	89	82
House Sparrow	79	79	78	74
Blue Jay	79	78	76	77
White-breasted Nuthatch	76	73	73	71
Red-bellied Woodpecker	74	76	75	76
Tufted Titmouse	74	75	73	73
American Goldfinch	70	70	71	69

P.S: The usual Winter Birds with the Percentage of sites visited during a specific time in Ohio in 2020-21.

As you can see the list of common Ohio winter birds during the last year, we’ve accumulated the top ten birds seen in this area in the winter season in a different location.

Many more bird species may encounter here in winter. But these are the most frequent ones. And in our today’s blog post, we’ll discuss only those.

Apart from those ten, you may see Black-capped Chickadee, Carolina Wren, Carolina Chickadee, European Starling, Hairy Woodpecker, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Song Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, American Crow, and American Robin.

1. Northern Cardinals in Ohio:

Red Cardinal, Common Cardinal, and Redbird are the usual names for the Northern Cardinal. These species are abundant in the Eastern USA, Southeastern Canada, Belize, Guatemala, and South Mexico. You can also encounter some of them in Hawaii and Bermuda.

The male cardinals are comparatively large with a short and sturdy bill, for both males and females have long tails that remain downward while sitting on a tree branch. Males are bright red with a prominent tuft on their head and have a black mask on their throat and face.

While the female northern cardinals are dull brown with light red spray on their head, tails, and wings, their crest looks a little shorter and slightly inflexion compare to the males. The Juvenile Northern Cardinals look similar to the females except for the bill.

The commonplace for their living are suburban gardens, towns, desert washes, thickets, woodland edges, forest clearings, swamps, city parks, and tall brushes. And from brushy to wide-open areas are their preferred nesting place.

Mostly insects, seeds, and berries are their primary diet. They eat while hopping around the low bushes or top the trees. In a food station, they favor sunflower seeds and occasionally worms.

Therefore, if you want to see more of this exciting species in your feeder, we recommend you to check this bird food for that.

2. House Finch of Ohio:

House Finch is a small bird native to the western portion of the North American territories, Hawaii, and some portion of the eastern continent. I.T.’s belong to the same genus as the American Rosefinch. These species bills are pointed, and their tails are jagged. The male finches have reddish color around the face and upper parts of their body. And the rest of the body parts (back, belly, and tail) are stripped brown.

Female or immature finches don’t have the reddish color, and they have the brown color with black stripped. A finch’s usual length is 11 to 16 cm. The average weight is around 20 grams.

Most of the House Finch don’t migrate to the South during the winter. However, a few from the northern and eastern territories may do otherwise. The habitat of the House Finch includes the city, suburbs, farmlands, and canyons.

They live in the trees, brush, woodland edges, semi-open areas, and scrub in those places. Mainly the lawn areas and avoiding grasslands and unbroken forests.

House Finches love to forage on the grounds, trees, and shrubs for weeds and other plant matters. And they prefer foraging in a flock. However, food stations with seeds or sugar-water can attract them.
If you’re asking our opinion on the best food for the House Finch, then we suggest this one.

3. Dark-eyed Junco of Ohio:

Neat and flashy little sparrows are known as Dark-eyed Junco. They’re native across Canada, the Appalachian mountains, and the Western territories of the USA. Open woodlands, parks, backyards, roadsides, and fields are the preferred locations during the winter periods.

Adult male Dark-eyed juncos are average-sized sparrows with circular-shaped heads. Depending on their species, the color and body structure varies from one another. One has a slate-colored body with a long tail, pale bill, and is comparatively small in length.

The Oregon adult male finch has a similar length to the slate-colored. The color is light brown back with a white belly. Oregon from the western part of North America has a hood that is dark brown.

There is also pink-sided one and red-backed ones. And their living areas are slightly different from the others. Moreover, the dark-eyed juncos prefer different seeds, insects, and berries in nature.

However, if you want our opinion on attracting more of them to your feeder, check this product.

4. House Sparrow in Ohio:

Another member of the sparrow family that are common in Ohio during the winter. It’s a very common bird throughout the world. They prefer living among humans (mostly making nests in buildings, parks, and city streets).

The males and females have visible color differences. Males have gray crowns, black bib, white cheeks, and chestnut necks are usual. However, the females have plain buff-brown along with gray to brown underparts. And their backs are striped with multiple colors like brown and black.

House sparrows can eat almost everything edible. However, the common foods are weeds, grains, and various types of seeds in the wild.

So, bringing House Sparrow to a bird feeder is easy. Still, we find this bird food that is loved by this species.

5. Blue Jay in Ohio:

The Blue jay is a very familiar bird species that are a comparatively large winter songbird in Ohio. An Eastern American Native bird chooses oaks, woodlots, parks, cities, forests, and towns for nesting.

They’re at the same size as Scrub-jay. Large crested, rounded, and broad tail, a black necklace, the blue upperparts, white belly, and lower body parts are usual for Blue Jay. The prominent blue color has various shades on its body.

The Blue Jays are very fond of acorns, and they help spread the oak trees around the area. However, they prefer hopper feeders in the backyard food station. And they’re noisy birds and naturally omnivore species.

However, to attract them to your feeder, you can offer a variety of foods like peanuts, seeds, corn, suet, and mealworms. Our research finds this excellent food that can help you bring more blue jay to your food station.

6. Blue Jay in Ohio:

7. White-breasted Nuthatch in Ohio:

Although it’s a small bird with an average length of 12-15 cm, the White-breasted Nuthatch is the largest Nuthatch species. The head seems comparatively larger than the body with a small and unnoticeable neck. It has a long-narrow bill that is slightly upward and straight and a short tail.

The color pattern of White-breasted Nuthatch’s color patterns is snow-colored white on its face and the underparts. And their backs are Gray-blue with striped black or ash. It has hood looking gray or black cap on its head.

They prefer living in woods, woodland edges, and coniferous forests. Like the woodpeckers and treecreepers, White-breasted Nuthatch also forages along the tree branches and trunks and feed on seeds and insects.

The White-breasted Nuthatch is omnivorous bird species. However, attracting to your feeder isn’t very difficult. Try this well-rated bird food that can bring more of them to your backyard.

8. Red-bellied Woodpecker in Ohio:

This one is pale and average length woodpeckers that can be seen in East forests. It has an excellent red hood on its head with a white lower body. Although their red color is highly visible on the head, they are called red-bellied.

Suet is the best food to attract them to your feeder. And here’s our suggested food, if you are looking for one.

9. Tufted Titmouse in Ohio:

It’s a small gray bird that lives in deciduous forests in the eastern. Tufted Titmouse has a round-small bill, black-large eyes, and a prominent brushy crest. They’re a regular visitor to the backyard feeders that eat nuts, berries, seeds, and insects.

According to our observation, we found this bird food to attract more of them to your backyard.

10. American Goldfinch in Ohio:

It’s a handsome-looking small bird from the finch family. It’s also the state bird for several states. It prefers Nyjer and sunflower seeds in the feeder. It has a vibrant yellow color with a shiny back and a little white.

Females are dull compared to males, but the conical bill is identifiable. And if you are trying to get more American Goldfinch to your backyard, fill the feeder with this one.

Last Saying

Feeding winter birds in Ohio is a great way to help the birds in need.

You can offer a lot of food through your feeder, starting from seeds to cereal and many more. There’re a few types of feeders that can do better on snowy days.

However, the food in your feeder should be according to your visitor’s expectations and the common birds your area has in the winter season.

Image Source:

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Feeding Winter Birds In Ohio | Birds Advice

What Food You Can Offer to the Winter Birds in Ohio