Exploring Nature: Birds In W
inter
With colder weather, birds are faced with a chilly challenge — how to stay warm.
We can just turn up the thermostat, but our avian friends don’t have it quite that easy. However, they do manage.
For one thing, they fluff up their feathers, making them look a little larger and allowing for an insulation barrier to form. Amazingly, they can also change blood flow and restrict blood going to the skin, improving heat capacity and reducing heat loss.
You’ll see birds tuck in a foot or both feet and also their bills under their feathers since these areas are prone to heat loss, just as humans put on caps to restrict heat loss from their heads.
Birds put on extra fat during the winter, storing it in their belly and by their wishbone. This fuel storage makes it easier to survive when food sources are not plentiful.
Birds will also huddle together or sit side by side to reduce the overall exposure to cold weather.
You can help birds by supplementing their food sources and hanging up black-oil sunflower seed feeders and suet blocks. Also, keeping clean water in a birdbath will help a big bunch. My birdbath has frozen a time or two, but I notice it gets lots of business whenever it thaws out. Up north, folks invest in heated birdbaths.
Food, water and shelter — try to provide these essentials and you will help all your feathered friends make it through the winter.
