It’s chilly and rainy outside and new nestlings need snacks. How can you help feathered parents support their new family? Birds & Beasleys owner, Sandy Shull, is here to help you figure out how to feed new parents in your neighborhood.
Hey! This is Sandy with Birds & Beasleys! Today’s question is what do I do about all of the baby birds right now? As you know, it’s cold and wet out there. It’s time to talk about how to take of them.
First of all, Mother Nature has it covered, but you can help a little bit. Let me look up here. Here’s an Osprey nest. We have one we’ve been watching in Missoula, this one is not it. If you get in on the Cornell Labs website, check in to the Missoula Osprey right now. She’s hunkered down, she has her wings over the top of the chicks, she’s repelling all the water, keeping them warm, waiting for the mate to bring the fish so they have something to eat. The big thing is, keeping them warm and dry and with good high-protein. This happens to be one up in Chesapeake, but it is fun. Look at explore.org as another place to look at webcams.
Here, locally what we want you to do is think about suet. So the birds are coming, they’re eating bugs and they’re eating suet. They are looking for high-protein. So, you can either put out something in a suet container, you could put out some mealworms, make sure you have out bird seed. Those adults are looking for food, easy food to give to their babies.
But if you don’t do that, not to worry, Mother Nature does have it covered, they’ll be fine. They’re just going to be hunkered down, so you might not see a lot of action at your feeders because they are keeping their chicks warm. If you have any questions, call Sandy at Birds & Beasleys.