Of course, all birds living in cities need feeding in November - March. But most of all, those birds that fly to populated areas from the wild suffer from a lack of food in winter. Sparrows and pigeons are much better adapted to frost than, for example, tits. It is actually much more difficult for “wild” birds to endure winter than for city birds. According to studies, for example, during the cold season, approximately 8 tits out of 10 die. For sparrows and pigeons, this figure is only about 1-2 individuals. And that is why special attention should be paid to feeding tits in the winter season.

What do tits eat in the wild?

The basis of the diet of these bright birds in forests and fields in summer are butterfly caterpillars. Also in the wild, tits feed on beetles, mosquitoes, midges, and aphids. Closer to autumn, these active, bright birds switch to a plant-based diet. At this time, their main food is the seeds of beech, spruce, birch, sorrel, burdock and hazel. Also in the fall, tits can pick up grains of corn, rye and wheat in the fields.

What to feed tits in October - March?

It is believed that the best food in the city for these birds can be:

• various types of cereals;
• seeds;
• dried berries and dried fruits;
• nuts;
• ready-made purchased mixtures for canaries and parrots.

And of course, pieces of raw lard are simply excellent food for tits. These birds are known to love this protein-rich product most of all.

What can't you offer?

So, what is best to feed tits is clear. But what should you not give to these birds? Tits are actually quite wild birds. Unlike the omnivorous city “regulars”, sparrows and pigeons, their stomachs, unfortunately, are completely unsuited to some types of human food. So, for example, you should never feed tits:

• nothing salty, including lard, pistachios, etc.;
• sweet;
• rye and fresh wheat bread;
• almonds and cherry pit kernels;
• raw potatoes;
• mushrooms;
• food for cats and dogs.

Thus, seeds can only be given to tits raw. Wheat bread is suitable for them only in the form of crackers and crumbs.

What to feed other birds

Thus, we found out what to feed the tits in winter. What kind of food should be offered to other birds at this time of year? In addition to tits, many other “wild” birds also fly to cities in winter. It is believed that bullfinches, goldfinches, chickadees, etc. are best fed with the same food as tits. The stomachs of forest and field birds are also quite sensitive to some types of human food. Therefore, like tits, you can only offer them unsweetened and unsalted raw food.

With regard to sparrows and pigeons, there are no such strict rules in terms of food selection. These permanent city residents can be given almost any food. The stomachs of such birds will tolerate fresh bread, fried seeds, and pistachios well. But it is best to feed urban birds, of course, with ordinary breadcrumbs and some inexpensive cereal. This will be very useful for sparrows and pigeons, and for the wallets of those who want to help them, it will not be expensive.

With the onset of winter, people increasingly strive to take care of our little brothers. It is also very popular to feed birds, which at this time are sometimes unable to obtain enough food for themselves. Today we will figure out what to feed tits in the feeder in winter, and the table will help us with this.

Habitats

For our strip, the most common species is the great tit. This species is widely represented throughout the European-Asian territory, reaching northern Africa. They like to settle in open areas: in the city and parks, in glades and edges of deciduous forests and in gardens. They are accustomed to people and do not shy away from densely populated areas.

The bird can be distinguished by its bright yellow, lemon color on its abdomen with a black longitudinal stripe.

Nutritional Features

These birds are unpretentious in nutrition; in warm seasons they feed on animal feed. Their diet consists of all kinds of forest pests, which they get from under tree bark, and small insects. Adults feed the chicks with caterpillars and larvae. Tits are often called the orderlies of the forest.

In late autumn with the onset of frosts and winter, a difficult period begins for these babies. At this time, most of the population dies from frost and hunger, which is why they need complementary feeding. In cold times, tits feed on all kinds of seeds of trees, shrubs and various plant grain feeds.

Where and how to set up a feeder

Feeding birds can be a real family activity. This is a great opportunity to instill in children a love of nature and introduce them to work.

Let's look at ways to make suitable feeders.

Requirements:

• They should have sides to prevent food from being blown away by the wind.
• The product should not have sharp edges so that the animal does not injure itself.
• The product must be stable and not sway in strong winds. For weighting, you can use, for example, stones.
• The craft should be positioned so that cats and rodents cannot reach it.
• The holes in the craft should be of such a size that the bird can freely penetrate inside and not be afraid of a closed space.
• The forest canteen should be made from moisture-resistant materials.
• Don't forget about the roof, which will protect the food from snow and rain.

Each of the available means can make a feeder. The material can be plastic bottles, branches, plywood, juice or milk boxes. Some home craftsmen also make quite sophisticated variations. Below we will consider the most accessible manufacturing methods.

From a plastic bottle

• On both sides you need to cut symmetrical holes of any regular shape: round, square, rectangular. Make the hole not too large so that pigeons cannot crawl through it.
• You can build a snow canopy by bending the cut U-shaped part up.
• Insert a perch stick from the bottom of the holes, first making symmetrical holes of a suitable diameter.
• It is best to seal the bottom of the slots with electrical tape to protect the place where the birds will land.
• You can tie the bottle feeder by the neck or, for reliability, make a through hole and thread a rope through it.

For greater convenience for your feathered friends, you can take a five-liter water bottle. In such a product there will be more room for them to maneuver.

To make the structure heavier and prevent it from flapping in a strong wind, it is worth placing a few pebbles on the bottom.

In a similar way, you can make a feeder from a cardboard box. Mark on the cardboard the place for the “door” and cut it out. Tape the edges with tape or tape. Pass a strong rope through the upper holes and the finished craft can be hung in a place inaccessible to cats.

These options are well suited for forests and courtyards. You can build more labor-intensive, but at the same time more durable and presentable products that can be used to decorate any garden, park, street and hang in your dacha.

Wooden houses

If you have extra wooden slats and a sheet of plywood, you can easily assemble a cute house. We sawed off four small racks for the roof, four sides that would run along the perimeter of the bottom from a flat sheet of plywood. Assemble everything into a single structure using glue or small screws. Depending on your skills and available funds, you can make much more sophisticated crafts.

If you have a wide, flat window sill, you can pour food on it or leave it on a saucer, the main thing is to be sure that it will not fall down.

In any case, making crafts will benefit children, because in addition to this process itself, imagination can be involved, including in the design and decoration of the feeder.

What you should not feed tits in winter and feeding rules

It is very important not to forget that birds only need to be fed, so you should not give the birds a lot of food so that the birds do not get used to easy prey and do not lose the ability to get food on their own. Otherwise, our kindness can play a cruel joke on them.

And always remember that having tamed a bird to feed, you should continue this action until the cold weather subsides, since they very quickly get used to the fact that there is always food waiting for them in a certain place.
Ornithologists say that yeast bread, cabbage, raw cereals, fried, sweet, spicy, salty, dairy products, peas, buckwheat, wheat cereals, fried seeds are strictly prohibited not only for tits, but for all birds.

What to feed tits besides seeds in winter?

One of the favorite treats for birds are seeds: pumpkin, sunflower, flax. The main condition is to give them raw!

Birds require a variety of mixed food. An excellent option would be a mixture of egg yolk and white, various grains, carrots and white crackers. They love to eat yellow-bellied birds and mealworms. Among other things, you can treat them to apple slices, pearl barley, raw nuts (walnuts, pine nuts, almonds, peanuts), and dried berries.

A separate point is worth highlighting lard, as it allows tits to gain the much-needed fat layer to retain heat. Lard can be placed either in a feeder or hung in an open space on a branch or some kind of rod. The main thing to remember is that under no circumstances should you give smoked, pickled, or salted lard to birds.

Based on all the advice from ornithologists, let’s summarize what you can feed tits in winter, and the information in the table will help us group the knowledge gained.

Can	It is forbidden
Seeds: sunflower, flax, pumpkin, watermelon and melon seeds	Potatoes, peas, cabbage, onions, spicy herbs
Raw peanuts, almonds, walnuts, cashews, silk nuts, hazelnuts	Dairy
Pork skin and lard	Salted, fried, spicy foods
Dried berries of hawthorn, rowan, cranberry, lingonberry	Dry uncooked cereals
Yeast-free bread, crackers	Black and white yeast bread
Millet, oats, hemp seeds	Spoiled and moldy food
Short grain rice	Millet
Weed and grass seeds	Rancid grain
Conifer cones	Buckwheat
Fruits, raw and dried	Barley grits
Mealworms
Chopped boiled egg
Pearl barley
Butter (on frosty days)
Dense oat flakes
Hercules

Our tradition of feeding birds in winter came from our grandmother - she always laid out millet and crumbs for the birds on the windowsill, and in the morning they saw her fussing around in the kitchen and flew in and pecked at the glass.

We feed the birds with crumbled fat - what remains after cutting meat, millet grains rich in microelements, bread crumbs from the table, porridge left after lunch, etc.

I don’t know how useful this food is for them, but they fly in to eat every day.

We also always leave rowan and viburnum on the trees; by spring they are completely pecked off. We ourselves like to watch this process - plump bullfinches jump on the branches, and in recent years crossbills have become more frequent - so we are studying bird species.

Bread is not a very healthy food for birds, so it’s better not to feed birds bread, there’s just not much choice, so they peck at it. It’s better to feed seeds of different plants: sunflower, pumpkin, melon, watermelon, corn, hemp, quinoa, string, as well as wheat, oats, millet, millet. Herb seeds then need to be prepared in advance, just like the seeds of melons, watermelons, etc. You can have lard, but it must be unsalted. The most universal food is sunflower seeds, just not fried or salted. I regularly buy these seeds for birds (we sell substandard ones especially for birds - a little trashy, small). Nuts are also suitable for both birds and squirrels.

Birds in winter will be grateful to you for any food that you put in the feeder.

If you pour millet, millet, oats, rice into the feeder, you will attract birds such as tits, sparrows, goldfinches, pigeons and others.

Tits, woodpeckers, and pigeons are very fond of sunflower seeds.

Everyone probably knows that tits love lard. You can tie a piece of bacon to a rope and hang it on a tree branch.

But crossbills and woodpeckers will like the nuts.

In general, you can pour any cereal that you have in the house into the feeder.

In winter, and at any other time of the year, you can feed birds (sparrows, tits, pigeons and others) with sunflower, pumpkin, melon, and watermelon seeds. Give them cereals, lard, bread or bread crumbs, grain. You can give them specialized commercial bird food. It is better to prepare food in the summer; I also recommend making you a convenient bird feeder.

In winter, the birds need our help, because the insects are hibernating, there is no grass, the berries have fallen, but the birds want to eat.

Tits can survive without our help; they can rarely be found in the city; they live more often in forests. But sparrows are city residents. But there is one BUT. If we feed, we give a chance to survive to the weak, who will give birth in the spring, the numbers will increase and there will not be enough food for everyone.

It is necessary to feed the birds in winter, not to feed them. If there is always an abundance of seeds and lard in the feeders, then the birds will stop looking for their own food, and these are larvae, berries, and seeds.

If there is a choice of food in the feeder, then the sparrows will choose seeds, since they are the most nutritious, and too much fat will lead to liver disease.

You need to establish a feeding ration, fill the feeder once or twice a day and not in large portions.

You should not give salted, fried seeds, millet, salted lard, or black bread.

You can give sparrows wheat, white bread, pearl barley, oatmeal, and barley.

For tits - low-fat cottage cheese in small quantities, boiled eggs, seeds, lard, beef, butter.

For tits and sparrows, place dried sunflower, pumpkin, watermelon, and melon seeds in the feeder. You can also treat the birds with millet, stale white bread, pieces of apple and boiled egg. It will be very useful for these birds to peck on grain cottage cheese, a piece of lard or boiled meat, and butter. You should not give birds salted, fried or spoiled foods, because they poison the birds’ bodies with toxins. As a result, the birds may get sick and die.

We feed titmice, sparrows, bullfinches and other small birds with grain and bread. You can also hang lard on a string, for example, they also love to feast on it, the main thing is that it is not salty, and in general, as far as I know, birds should not be given anything salty.

Every winter I make a feeder for tits, bullfinches, and many other small birds; I put millet, bread, small corn, and also millet in the feeder. I hang the lard on a small wire, the tits prefer lard, and then they collect grain and bread.

Feeding birds in winter is sometimes very difficult, since the feeders are often literally covered with snow, but this is still a fixable matter, the main thing is to put in your efforts and a piece of your soul. You can feed any grain, for example millet, and also don’t forget about regular bread, and even simple sunflower seeds. When you look at such birds, it’s even nice that they feed with your help.

And this is clearly a question from an animal lover! Yes, feeding our little brothers in winter is desirable and very necessary, especially if there is a lot of snow. When there is no snow, they themselves are able to find food for themselves in the form of grains, herbs, waste and other things. But you can’t dig it up under the snow. So it’s easy and simple to make such a feeder and throw grain into it: millet, millet, wheat, seeds.

Tits especially love lard, as other authors have said. But if you don’t have grain in your house, then they will be grateful to you for bread.

By the way, here is an interesting version of a bird feeder. The highlight is that there are not just windows, but separate perches that are convenient to sit on

The tit is a bright and beautiful small bird. The color of its abdomen is yellow or lemon, with a longitudinal black stripe, and with a transverse white stripe on the wings. The tit lives in forests and cities and is not a migratory bird, and therefore remains for the winter.

What to feed

Ornithologists advise feeding tits in the city with the following seeds and nuts:

• small unroasted sunflower seeds;
• millet;
• watermelon, pumpkin or melon seeds;
• not toasted sesame seeds;
• pine nuts
• unshelled peanuts;
• crushed walnuts;
• millet;
• oats;
• flax seeds;
• rape;

Berries are also good:

• rowan;
• rosehip;
• hawthorn;
• sea ​​buckthorn;
• elderberries;
• blueberries

Grated apples and carrots and low-fat grainy cottage cheese are good to peck at in the feeder.

Many people remember from childhood that they feed tits lard. Birds love lard; this product contains fats, proteins and vitamins that are essential for survival in winter. It must be unsalted! It would be correct to string it on a thread and hang it in or next to the feeder. Also on frosty days, tits are given finely shaved frozen beef or pieces of butter. High-calorie foods are especially needed in winter and early spring.

Do not be afraid to feed tits with foods that the birds have not eaten.
- If some type of food turns out to be new to tits, they may ignore it at first. But after some period, having become acquainted, they will most likely feast on it with pleasure,” says ornithologist Irina Marova, leading researcher at the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University.

What not to give

Before feeding tits, be sure to keep in mind that some types of food can be very dangerous for birds. Even if harm is not immediately noticeable, hazardous substances can accumulate in the body and lead to tragic consequences. Remember foods that should not be given to tits:

• any salty food;
• fried food;
• spoiled food;
• Rye bread;
• citrus

Feeding trough

You can use different ones to feed tits. The food must be protected from snow and wind. The location should be inaccessible to cats and inconvenient for squirrels, crows and pigeons. Parks, squares and open balconies are ideal for the city.

Be sure to periodically clean the tits’ feeding area from food debris, droppings and other debris. Remember, a dirty feeder is a source of bird slaughter.

Bird feeding schedule

Remember that you need to feed tits only by helping them eat in the cold. You should not give in to the desire to feed them to their fill and strive for them to eat only on your window. It is advisable to organize a specific feeding regimen, adding food at the same time. Feed should be provided in limited quantities so that they do not become completely dependent on feeding.

Supporting birds in cold and hungry times is very important for them, since without human help, birds may simply not survive until spring. This is especially true for tits, since insects, which are absent in winter, make up a significant part of their normal diet. And remember that the most important thing is that once you have tamed birds, you are responsible for them. Don't let the little tits down, help them get through difficult times, because feeding tits in winter is not so difficult.

Many people know firsthand that birds play a large role in the bioprotection of the garden, but it is tits that become the best helpers. After all, they do not fly away for the winter, but live with us, migrating closer to human habitation with the onset of cold weather. And in winter they also clean the garden, destroying wintering insects and the eggs they lay. Therefore, in late autumn or early winter, you need to install a titmouse and make a feeder. And so that the birds don’t suffer from our help, let’s figure out what to feed the tits in the feeder in winter.

What to feed tits in a feeder in winter

The tit in the garden is an insatiable destroyer of beetles, caterpillars, larvae and slugs. In general, she is by no means a vegetarian, so in winter she prefers lard, boiled chicken, and even grated boiled eggs. Some well-wishers manage to make sausages for tits from a mixture of cereals, drenched in melted lard. Lard for tits must be unsalted, otherwise the poor creatures will be starved of dry wood, and they will begin to peck snow without measure. It's harmful to them.

In general, what tits love is clear – protein food. But they also visit the feeding trough with pleasure. What to feed tits in the feeder in winter? It is best to sprinkle peeled, unroasted sunflower seeds there. And if the seeds are in husks, then before filling them you need to rub them firmly between your palms so that as many husks as possible crack. Small-grained black seeds have a softer husk than large white ones. The tits, of course, take the difficult-to-split seeds from the feeder, but having lost interest, they throw them away and fly back to the feeder.

It is necessary to ensure that the feeders are full - tits quickly get used to the “set table”. And if you wait to replenish the food, they will knock on the window early in the morning. Honestly! Thanks to feeders and lard, tits can be attracted to the garden, and they will no longer leave their “habitable” places. In addition, tits quickly get used to humans, recognize their owners and can safely take food from their hands.

It is better to hang the feeder somewhere in the part of the garden closest to the house, so as not to disturb the snowdrifts in winter. And the lard, of course, must be distributed in the orchard area. At first the tits will peck at it, and when they get used to the place, they will start cleaning the garden. They constantly jump from branch to branch, look under the bark and work.

But scientists believe that birds should not be fed in winter. Winter feeding influences natural selection - by spring, weak birds survive and produce a generation of weak chicks. This is data from English scientists recently published in the press. But they have not yet come up with other ways to attract tits to the orchard, and they are unlikely to be environmentally friendly...

When the tits arrive to have time to prepare and hang the titmouse

It is better to make strong houses for tits from thick unplaned boards or plywood. There is no need to paint them. Unlike starlings, tits do not clean their home after the brood has fledged. Therefore, we passed the piano canopy on the titmouse's ridge so that the lid could be opened for cleaning.

It is better to hang titmouses in the fall so that these hard workers get used to them and settle down in the garden. When the tits fly in from the forest for the winter, there will already be lard nearby, and they will certainly not go unnoticed. Lard can be hung directly in a piece by passing twine through it, or by stringing pieces onto wooden skewers and attaching them to the titmouse with tape.

There are recommendations for great tits to place their entrances to the west, but our wind rose blows from the west in summer and from the north in winter, so we turned the entrance to the east, because birds do not like drafts. Our fruit trees are not tall, and there are no cats (two German women are chasing them away from the site), so we fixed 2 titmouse trees at a height of 3 meters. Ornithologists do not recommend installing more than two titmice on 6 acres; the birds will become hostile.

Well, what else should I add about installing titmice? What ecologists entered into the calendar Meeting Day of Wintering Birds, or Titmouse's day– November 12. It coincides with the Orthodox day of the holy martyrs Zinovy ​​and Zinovia. In the peasant environment, the period of appearance of wintering birds near their homes and the church holiday gradually merged, and the name was transformed into “Zinovia the titmouse.” A good tradition that sets the date for hanging up feeders and starting feeding your feathered friends.

If it was not possible to hang the titmouses in the garden in the fall, they can be placed in the spring, until mid-April. So over the winter you can make a couple of titmouses from scrap materials, it’s not at all difficult. Perhaps the first generation of chicks will not appear in your house (those that peck), but by the time of the second brood, the tits will have time to get used to their new housing. In autumn, titmouses should be cleared of old nests. In winter they serve as shelter from the cold.

What does a tit eat in the spring-summer season?

In terms of gluttony and omnivorousness, tits are comparable only to crows and pigeons. In urban areas, they can be found in trash cans, where they pick at bones, milk cartons and potato peelings. But their most obvious benefit is in the garden; they are inveterate enemies of pests and, accordingly, gardeners’ best friends. A pair of tits, when raising offspring, can save up to 40 trees from attack by the most dangerous pests. When feeding chicks, they have to make about 600 trips in search of food.

Where tits have settled, crop moth damage is very rare. They also eat hairy gypsy moth caterpillars, hawthorns, and many others that other birds avoid. They eat from morning until evening, and if they can no longer eat, they still kill the insect that catches their eye and hide it. And during periods of food shortage, they search for their bins and eat up supplies.

Repertoire

Their hubbub and tinkling sound in the garden is pleasant. There are many intonations in the simple chime of “tsing-tsing-tsi-pi”, and in the ringing cry of “pin-pin-chrrrrzh”. And the spring song “zin-zi-ver” is already remembered in the arrangement by V. Khlebnikov (1908-1909):

Wings with gold letter

The finest veins

The grasshopper put it in the back of the belly

There are many coastal herbs and ver.

“Ping, ping, ping!” - Zinziver rattled.

Oh, swanlike!

Speaking about the benefits of tits in the garden, it would be useful to recall that the use of pesticides in this case is unacceptable. But there is no need for it, because by attracting birds, the biological protection of plants will become much more powerful, all fruit trees will be cleared of codling moths, hawthorn, goldentail and other pests. Good luck and reduce pests in your garden. What do you prefer to feed tits in the feeder in winter?