Top Photo: The wetlands after a brief snow event.

Cold temperatures and snow bring about changes in bird behavior, directly and indirectly. Birds that typically stay north sustaining themselves on fruits and seeds don’t necessarily need to migrate south due to the cold. As long as they have food they can usually cope with the temperature. However, heavy snow burying food sources and frozen ponds will put most birds on the wing, song birds and waterfowl alike.

Birds like purple finch and red-breasted nuthatch don’t appear at our feeders every winter but move across the countryside following the food source. If there’s still readily available food up north, or in our local mountains, the birds will take advantage of that supply and stay put. Otherwise, they’re on the move.

Our regular yearly winter visitors, like hermit thrush, fox sparrow, ruby-crowned kinglet and others increase their feeder visits when snow and sub-freezing weather arrives (which doesn’t occur very often on the Carolina Piedmont). Prompted by cold and snowy weather the birds change their behavior and make more frequent visits to the feeders, partaking in behavior to suit their body’s need for fuel. Suet and black oil sunflower seeds help provide the needed fat, protein and other nutrients the birds need under these conditions.

While species like ruby-crowned kinglet and hermit thrush are regular winter residents, they don’t visit our suet feeders often. But when cold and snow adds to the birds’ need for higher octane fuel, largely insectivorous birds like kinglets are likely to visit the suet and get what they need.

Hermit thrush, though, also insectivorous for much of the year, switching to fruit in the fall and winter, will also join in, or attempt to. More suited to feeding at ground level and picking berries from vines and tree branches, they’ll sometimes attempt to feed at suet feeders when the weather turns harsh. However, their long thin feet and toes are not built for acrobatic perching on a swinging suet feeder. They usually fail, though trying hardily.

The great blue heron pictured here may have recently moved south due to heavy snows and frozen water further north over the past week (it’s behavior was unlike our local GBH). It dropped in to a small patch of open water on a warm day on the north shore of the pond. It was apparently successful. Bullfrog tadpoles were present and moving about. That patch of open water is now closed, frozen over. The heron has left the pond.

Our hooded mergansers have departed for open water too. They can’t swim and dive for food if the pond’s surface is solid. A local pair stopped by the same day as the heron above, but chose not to stay on the soon-to-be frozen pond.

And finally, American robins and cedar waxwings are doing what they do each year at this time, raiding the holly trees of their drupes, or berries. Keep a lookout for them in Gateway Park or along the path to the Butterfly House.

Let’s wish the birds well over the next several days and more. Stop by the feeders and see who’s doing what.

Ranger Greg