A few of my friends and regular contacts have asked: “Where are the birds?”

They and I have noticed very few birds taking advantage of our feeding stations.

Up until Thanksgiving Day, most of the Times News coverage area had been free of snow. When snow covers your lawns, the fields and pastures, the woodlots or our forests, it becomes much more difficult for birds to find enough food. Hence, many feed the birds for that reason, and because we like seeing birds, and sometimes, new or less common species.

Bird feeding has become so common today. I guess birding, as a hobby has grown exponentially, too.

Enjoying birding as much as I do, I actually have a few feeders filled all summer. I have one suet feeder filled until it gets too warm, but I keep a few tube feeders filled with black oil sunflower seeds for our year-round resident cardinals, song sparrows, black-capped chickadees, tufted titmice and my not too favorite house finches that visit daily.

When autumn arrives and the daylight hours lessen, I fill all my feeders and anticipate the first winter arrivals. It is these birds that greatly increase the feeder activity. Dark-eyed juncos (juncos), white-throated sparrows and some purple finches arrive here, often by the first week of October. If you are lucky and have Niger seed feeders, you may even entice pine siskins to feed and sometimes to linger here until they travel a bit farther south.

Let’s talk about what you can expect to see and how to keep them returning regularly for your enjoyment.

Cardinals, tufted titmice, black-capped chickadees and house finches all are partial to the black oil sunflower seeds. American goldfinches will eat the sunflower seeds but enjoy the Niger (thistle) seeds in particular. I’ve found Marzen’s and the Mill at Germansville to have a good variety of feeding supplies. In particular, I make my own blend by purchasing their white millet and cracked corn. I mix two parts of the millet with one part corn.

This mix is scattered under the feeders, where shrubbery offers some safe haven for the ground feeders. The juncos, white-throated sparrows, song sparrows and mourning doves prefer to feed on the ground rather than using tube or bin feeders. Red-bellied woodpeckers seem to like the cracked corn.

My favorite bird food is suet. I have at least three or four blocks of suet hanging in the trees close to the other feeders. I also suspend one suet cage from a post on our back porch closest to the kitchenette windows.

The suet really supplies very important calories to a bunch of species. We regularly have downy woodpeckers, red-bellied woodpeckers, Carolina wrens, chickadees and even mockingbirds feeding there.

Two years ago, a pine warbler remained here two months later than normal and made a number of daily trips to eat the suet.

If you are in a more urban setting, expect starlings to find the suet to their liking. And if a flock finds the suet, they can bully the other birds away, though.

One other suggestion to help the birds through the winter is to keep water available to them. When the coldest days arrive, I add a bird bath heater to keep the water thawed. You’ll be surprised how many utilize this water source.

I’ve included a few photos of some of the regular, and even an uncommon species or two, that you may likely encounter just outside your windows. If you can’t get out there, entice the birds to you.

Test Your Outdoor Knowledge: On one of your nature drives or walks you find very smooth barked trees with most of their dead leaves still clinging to the branches. They are: A. sassafras; B. American beech; C. red maple; D. shagbark hickory.

Email breed71@gmail.com.