9 Common Birds You Might Find In Your Garden In Winter (And What To Feed Them)

Not all backyard birds migrate south to greener pastures when fall changes to winter. Plenty of them stay behind permanently, braving the sub-zero temperatures with their petite bodies and putting up with whatever meager food they can rummage through the snow-laden landscape. In turn, avid gardeners benefit from their presence, as these feathered creatures animate the dormant winter gardens handsomely with their colorful plumes and songs. Luckily, the bare branches make watching these winter birds in action easier.

While birds don't need our assistance in surviving the harsh winter conditions, they would surely appreciate some spoon-feeding and cover. For instance, leaving out leaf clutter and weaving brush piles from broken twigs so they can find overwintering insects and eggs is a massive help. Additionally, follow other birdscaping tips to turn your yard and garden into a bird haven, such as growing berry and seed-producing native plants and evergreen trees. Putting up roost boxes and bird feeders is equally effective in attracting birds to your yard during the winter season. However, to ensure your efforts aren't wasted, it's best to learn about the specific winter birds present in your area and cater to their dietary habits accordingly. Read on to discover who's camping in your yard and what to feed them.

If you reside in the western U.S. or near the Appalachian mountains, dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis) may be a continual presence. Otherwise, they're winter visitors if you live in other parts of the U.S. That's because, during the breeding season, they keep to conifer and deciduous forests of the northern mountains (such as in Canada). But when temperatures dip, they descend upon and swathe the U.S. with their presence until they're ready to return north to the forests in spring. This is also why they're regarded as one of the most popular "snowbirds." However, recognizing dark-eyed juncos can be a tad difficult because they show immense variations within their range. Rounded heads, long tails, and white tail feathers that flash silver as they weave between trees are common to their kind, as is their trilling song. But their plumage appears brown in the west, gray in the east, or sports pink or yellow tinges, since they interbreed as well.

Dark-eyed juncos delight in hopping around understory bushes, weeds, snow cover, leaf litter, and lawns, picking off insects, berries, and seeds — especially seeds belonging to buckwheat, sorrel, lamb's quarters, and chickweed. They may also pluck off unsuspecting bugs on warm winter days. You can invite them by laying out a smorgasbord of seeds, including nyjer, safflower, sunflower, milo, millets, peanuts, oats, and corn in hopper or platform feeders. However, they might be more interested in looking through the seed spillover beneath the feeding stations.

You'll find white-breasted nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis) fluttering through your winter garden if it has plenty of tall deciduous trees — such as maple, hickory, or oaks — or bird feeders. These winter birds have gray-black bodies with chestnut spots coloring their rear ends. Their frost-white faces are enveloped in black (male) or gray (female) hoods. However, their biggest giveaway is their tendency to trail down trees upside down, laterally, or in other bizarre positions as they hunt for insects. Due to this, they're also called wall walkers and upside-down birds. White-breasted nuthatches are found throughout the U.S., with a heavy presence along the Great Lakes region and south into Tennessee. However, they don't like the arid parts of the Great Plains and the Sonoran Desert. 

Like downy woodpeckers, white-breasted nuthatches, too, intermix with different flocks — titmice and chickadees, in particular — while foraging for winter food. Some simple ways to attract nuthatch birds to your yard entail putting out a platform or tube feeder containing sunflower seeds, safflower, peanuts, or mealworms. They also share an appetite for suet, corn, and peanut butter. Consider growing plants that produce acorns and nuts.

The downy woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens) is the tiniest of all North American woodpecker species. It's a common sight across gardens with tree covers, orchards, and woodlots. Although you can find them anytime in all continental U.S. regions, they're easier to spot during the winter as they head toward the backyard feeders. However, you won't find them in Southwestern ranges, since they're too arid. Both male and female downy woodpeckers look similar with their short, stocky bills, white-striped black bodies, and white-spotted tail feathers. However, females lack the red spot on their nape. That being said, these non-migratory birds also exhibit regional variations, appearing dusky in the Pacific Northwest while supporting fewer white markings on their back feathers in the east U.S.

Attracting downy woodpeckers will turn your backyard into a bird haven since they don't forage alone. They live by the "unity is strength" principle and team up with tufted titmice, chickadees, and brown-headed nuthatches to keep predators in check and streamline their food hunt. To have your yard ringing with their pik-pik call, hang a suet feeder. Otherwise, stuff a platform feeder with sunflower seeds, safflower, shelled peanuts, mealworms, doughnuts, or cheese to sate them. Grow goldenrods so they may extract the grubs harboring in the stems' galls. Woodpeckers also appreciate the fruits and seeds of serviceberry, sumac, and beech, and occasionally even sip from hummingbird feeders.

Northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) is the songbird that makes a barren winter landscape pop red. It does so for the locals living in central, eastern, and southwestern parts of the U.S., in addition to California and Hawaii. The black-throated male birds look fetching, preening their red feathers against a snowy branch — no wonder they're the face of most Christmas décor. While their mated female counterparts aren't as vivid, they hold their own with their red-speckled, pale brown plumage. As northern cardinals gladly limit themselves to seeds and fruits in winter, they see little need to migrate south for insects. That's why they're seen as resident birds making year-round appearances.

To ensure northern cardinals don't make the cardinal sin of skipping your backyard, erect and load a platform feeder with black oil or hulled sunflower seeds. Since they have tough, red beaks that can crack open the hardiest seeds, supplement them with safflower, peanuts, cracked corn, and milo seeds. Large hopper stations and tube feeders can also serve as dining spots. Also, consider growing beautiful trees that will have cardinals flocking to your yard for their fruits, like blackberry, dogwood, hackberry, mulberry, and wild grape.

White-throated sparrows (Zonotrichia albicollis) are quite attractive because of their black-striped, white crowns punctuated by yellow markings. You may also find relatively duller variations where these gray-bodied avians flaunt brown patterns instead of black and white striation (called "tan-striped sparrows"). Although these feathered beauties spend their summers breeding in Canadian or Midwest U.S. forests, they begin migrating down south before fall ends, remaining through mid-spring. Generally, they overwinter in the southern U.S., from Arizona to Florida. They also sometimes settle in the Great Plains and along the Pacific coast. Unfortunately, as they migrate at night, they often fall victim to window collisions. So, learn how you can prevent birds from flying into your windows to indulge in birdwatching and conserve their declining population.

Create a sparrow-friendly habitat by not cutting back your perennials or shrubs during the winter. Delay your fall cleanup because white-throated sparrows enjoy rummaging through the leaf litter for creeping crawlies. They'll also devour weed and grass seeds, such as buckwheat and ragweed, unless you've packed your feeding trays with millets or sunflower (black oil-based) seeds. Sometimes, they may consume berries from blackberry, blueberry, cranberry, or grape shrubs, aside from sumac and dogwood.

Common throughout the northern U.S. region, black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) may chance upon your backyard feeders during winter. Although their range extends from the West Coast to New England, some northeast-based birds do shift to the southern bounds when temperatures drop. Spot them in your garden as they touch down on the birch or alder trees, woody shrubs, weeds, cattails, or feeding stations. They're the spitting image of Carolina chickadees with white cheeks, rotund tan-white bodies, gray feathers, and oversized black heads that obscure their black eyes.

With black-capped chickadees, you don't need to put in much effort. Just put out a suet cage or a platform feeder. That's because their investigative nature ensures they catch sight of sunflower seeds, nyjer, peanut butter, mealworms, or safflower and fly over. In fact, that's why woodpeckers, warblers, kinglets, vireos, and creepers tail their flocks as winter food scavenging becomes easier. However, remember that black-capped chickadees won't prolong their pit stop at feeders, as they prefer eating elsewhere. But if you wish to prolong their dee-dee-dee calls in your yard, you can convince them to pick seeds off your hand. Complement by growing seed-, berries-, and fruit-producing and insect-attracting plants, such as staghorn sumac, coneflowers, sedums, and spruces.

Forgetting to rake shed leaves from your garden floor during fall may invite eastern towhees (Pipilo erythrophthalmus). That's because they like wading and scratching through such jumbles as they sing in delight. Alternatively, they may congregate in your yard for roosting if it's packed in medium-height shrubs and thickets. But you must live in and around the Midwest and Southeast to enjoy their multi-seasonal presence. These robin-sized sparrows are quite striking, with black throats and breasts perched above rust bodies and white underbellies. However, their female brethren are more brunette than black. Down south, you may catch them staring at you with yellow eyes, as opposed to their typical reds.

To lure eastern towhees into your garden, position your bird feeder closer to the overgrown border. They'll fly in droves to nibble on the seeds that dropped down from the feeding stations, especially millets, sunflower seeds, oats, corn, and wheat. They may also make a meal out of grasses, ragweeds, and smartweeds if insects and acorns are hard to come by. Adding berried plants to your garden, such as blueberries, elderberries, wild grapes, and blackberries, may aid their food hunt. Also, consider adding heated birdbaths near foraging grounds.

American goldfinches (Spinus tristis) are a daily constant in the north U.S. region, where they breed and brood over thistle plants. But when their food supplies fall short during fall, some of them migrate to the south in time for winter, making backyard bird feeders their new haunt. Occasionally, they're accompanied by redpolls and pine siskins who migrate on-and-off, depending on whether the forest crop can cover their winter food needs. That being said, as American goldfinches bolt twice a year, the males lose their summery yellow plumes by the time cold weather seeps in. As a result, both sexes appear drab and dull with black wings enveloping their olive-brown bodies.

In case you find your yard taken over by the flock of short-distance, northern migrants, make them stay by feeding them nyjer seeds. These can either be splayed on the ground or platform feeders. Sunflower seeds are another option, as American goldfinches can easily crack their casing for tasty morsels. Sparing the seed heads of coneflowers, asters, goldenrods, sunflowers, ragweed, and dandelions will ensure they won't run out of food supplies in the winter. Alder, maples, pines, yellow poplars, elms, western red cedar, birch, and sweet gum trees are also important.

Cousins to tits and chickadees, tufted titmice (Baeolophus bicolor) are known to visit backyard feeders during winters. They have a black spot sitting right above their stout bill, and their peach-splashed, silvery-gray silhouettes complement the thawing snow. Although they naturally hail from eastern deciduous forests, they've been stretching their wings upwards, reaching as far as southern Ontario, Canada. Increasing bird-feeding activity, climate change, and maturing woodlands are the main reasons behind their expanding range.

These crested birds will enliven your winter garden with their peter-peter-peter song if you stock your platform or tube feeder with sunflower seeds — both black oil and hulled are acceptable. They also gladly gobble up nyjer and safflower seeds, apart from peanuts and mealworms. You can entice them with a suet feeder, as well. Remember, tufted titmouse are hoarders, and would rather sweep your feeder clean — one seed at a time. These thieved seeds will be hulled and stored in a bark cavity, sometimes 130 feet away! As they also like huddling in and flitting between mature trees, ensure such sentinels produce berries, nuts, and fruits (think beech), so that your winter birds don't get famished.