Birders are notoriously generous. We feed the bluebirds, cardinals, woodpeckers, titmice, bluejays, finches and all those who fly up to feeders – but what about the sparrows? The ground feeders? They get hungry, too. I do my best to feed them, along with others, like the snowbirds and doves.
The most common backyard sparrows are the house sparrows and the song sparrows. Occasionally, a chipping sparrow will pop up in the summer along with a white-crowned sparrow. But most backyard visitors will be the house and song sparrows.
In winter, sparrows require hat-fat, high-calorie foods. A perfect blend is Audubon’s Extreme Variety blend which contains black oil sunflower seeds, millet, peanuts, safflower seeds, grain products, canary seed, mixed nuts and raisins. In fact, this blend covers pretty much all the bases for all birds, but it’s perfect for sparrows. It’s about $20 for a 15-pound bag, not terrible expensive and it will get the little ground feeders through the winter.
I have been putting a scoop full of this seed in the front yard beneath the shrubs where the sparrows hang out. They also relish suet in the winter, so in order to give them suet that the squirrels won’t eat, I use a cake of pepper infused suet just for the ground birds.
Be sure not to set your ground feeders up for an ambush from hawks. Place seeds and feeders near cover and be sure to clean feeders and birdbaths often.
