{"id":10828,"date":"2022-02-10T19:00:07","date_gmt":"2022-02-10T19:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/?p=10828"},"modified":"2022-02-10T21:11:37","modified_gmt":"2022-02-10T21:11:37","slug":"5-colourful-birds-thatll-keep-the-winter-blues-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/en\/5-colourful-birds-thatll-keep-the-winter-blues-away\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Colourful Birds That\u2019ll Keep the Winter Blues Away"},"content":{"rendered":"

If the winter is feeling rather bleak and long, just look to your backyard for some life!\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n

We\u2019ve got five brightly coloured birds that\u2019ll liven up your backyard and how to attract each and every one of them to your space over the winter months. See? You don\u2019t have to travel far to enjoy birdwatching. You can watch them from the comfort of your own home!<\/p>\n

Bright Bird #1: Blue Jay<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
\"Blue<\/a>
Blue jays
<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The only blue bird on the list, the Blue Jay may be a common bird to see here in Canada, but that doesn\u2019t make them any less glorious. These stunning birds will grace your garden if you provide tray or hopper feeders filled to the brim with peanuts, sunflower seeds, suet, cracked corn and millet. You get bonus points if you put fruit out for them too!\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Don\u2019t be surprised if you notice your Blue Jays popping by the feeder and flitting away soon after. They often stash their goods under trees or shrubs to eat a little later. They\u2019re even built to stash and dash! They can carry food in their gulcar pouch \u2013 a little spot in their throats \u2013 where they can pop nuts and seeds. But they don\u2019t stop there. They\u2019ll also stash a peanut in their mouth and one more in their beak before they fly away to hide the lot.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bright Bird #2: Northern Cardinal<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
\"Northern<\/a>
Northern Cardinal in bare tree \u00a9 Susan Enders | CWF Photo Club<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Northern Cardinal is a stunning vivid red bird. At least the males are. You see, females are quite a bit duller in colour. Don\u2019t get us wrong, they\u2019re still gorgeous with pale brown plumage and reddish orange colouring on their wings, tail and bill. But the showstoppers are the males. Males are blazing bright red all over \u2013 minus their black faces.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>It certainly wouldn\u2019t be hard to pick them out from the other birds at your feeder. Cardinals will often chow down alongside other species like American Goldfinch, Tufted Titmice, Dark-eyed Juncos and all kinds of sparrows. They like the same kinds of seeds: black oil sunflower seeds, hulled sunflower seeds, millet, milo and more!\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to attract these birds to your garden all year-round, invest in some fruit-bearing and seed-bearing plants like sumac, dogwood, sedges and different kinds of grasses.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bright Bird #3: Downy Woodpecker<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
\"Downy<\/a>
Downy Woodpecker pair<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Downy Woodpeckers are vivid white and black birds with a touch of red on their crown. These gorgeous birds will flock to your suet feeder along with nuthatches and chickadees, but they\u2019ll also happily consume the black oil sunflower seeds, millet and peanuts you put out for them too. While they spend plenty of time at feeders, they spend even more time in wooded areas, hopping up and down the length of trees, looking for insects to eat! They fish out insects living under tree bark and in tiny cracks and crevices along the trunk of the tree with their amazingly long tongues. Their tongues can be up to 15 <\/span>centimetres<\/span> long! How in the world can a Downy Woodpecker carry around 15 <\/span>centimetres<\/span> of tongue in its mouth? Isn\u2019t that a mouthful? Well, yes, it would be! And <\/span>so<\/span> the Downy Woodpecker stores its tongue coiled up inside its skull.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bright Bird #4: American Robin<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n
\"American<\/a>
American Robin<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At this point I think we all associate the American Robin with the start of spring. Winter doesn\u2019t seem that much longer when these lovely birds arrive on our lawns. But that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s over. In fact, many southern provinces have sighted American Robins in the heart of winter over the past 10 years.\u00a0 Even those that flock to more balmy climes to get away from the cold often return in early March. The first robins to grace our gardens are usually males; a week or so later the females will arrive. If you\u2019ve got fruit-bearing trees and shrubs in your backyard, you\u2019ll likely spot quite a few <\/span>robins in your backyard! That said, they also like sunflower seeds, peanuts and suet.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bright Bird #5: Cedar Waxwings<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n
\"Cedar<\/a>
Cedar Waxwing taking a bite \u00a9 Jesse Butt | CWF Photo Club<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cedar Waxwings love fruit above all things. Of course, they got their name for how much they love eating cedar berries in the winter months, but don\u2019t be mistaken, they\u2019re not at all picky. Practically any fruit will do! Cedar Waxwings will happily munch on dogwood, serviceberry, juniper, mountain ash, crabapple and even winterberry.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>How they eat berries is nearly as interesting as how many berries they can consume! Cedar Waxwings will either land on the branch of a berry-producing tree and gulp the entire berry whole or it\u2019ll grab berries mid-flight by hovering below a bunch of berries!\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you see a Cedar Waxwing with orange tail tips, you can thank their diet for that orange colouring! They\u2019re usually yellow! But after a healthy helping of berries from an introduced honeysuckle species, their yellow tips turn orange.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Berries are so important to these beautiful birds, male Cedar Waxwings will woo potential mates with them! Males will present a small fruit (like a berry) to a female and the female will grab it in its bill, flit away for a brief moment and return the berry back to the male. They\u2019ll go back and forth like this for a while before the female finally eats the berry. Chivalry isn\u2019t dead, after all!\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If the winter is feeling rather bleak and long, just look to your backyard for some life!\u00a0 We\u2019ve got five brightly coloured birds that\u2019ll liven up your backyard and how…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":10829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[631],"tags":[737,591],"class_list":["post-10828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-connect-with-nature","tag-feeding-birds","tag-wild-about-birds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10828"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10847,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10828\/revisions\/10847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cwf-fcf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}