I feed the birds all year sort of. They start with cleaning off the sunflowers that they plant the previous fall and continue to clean off the grasses, berries, and corn that I sometimes grow just for them. Of course I have water out all the time for them and a heated dish in the winter. I feed the big birds cat food with bread or cereal in it. They get any left overs when I cook a turkey or ham. I make my own concoction of peanut butter, prunes, hulled sunflower seeds, rolled oats, millet, black oil sunflower and a few other things they like to pick at. I buy millet, black oil sunflower and striped sunflower by the sack and keep it in large bins in the hall along with peanuts,hulled sunflower seeds, oats and rabbit pellets. Once in a while I will give them a treat of meal worms from the petstore or cut up fruit. And sometimes I will get a seed bell or spray millet just to watch them. I also ground up dry catfood last year and put it in the feeder. The little birds get much needed fat and protein to keep warm that way. I have the usual black and white feather dusters, the blue jays, lots of chickadees (black capped and boreal), nuthatches (red and white breasted), woodpeckers, northern flickers, juncos, finches, sparrows, the odd grosbeaks, waxwings, and redpolls and I even had a kestral last spring. Not many crows unless it is a really warm winter. My computer is in the corner of the front bedroom where there are the old corner windows. I feed the birds from about 5 feeders and baskets hanging from the big white spruce about 2 feet from the corner of the house here. I feed the rabbits under the tree and the dish feeders on the fence from big heavy ceramic dishes. It is such a routine for me to feed the birds after I feed the dogs on winter mornings. My neighbours are used to the crazy lady in her fleece pjs out feeding the birds every morning and the dogs go out and wait by the fence for the maggies to drop food for them. Quite the scene to watch! The maggies are very comical and they literally talk to me. I can't stand to see anything go hungry or be cold and the little birds seem to like to feast under the protective branches of this 50 foot spruce. My neighbour across the street says she likes to sit with her coffee in the morning and watch the bunnies and birds eating. And that reminds me: Must find a bale of hay for the bunnies. Last year I fed a cat all winter but coudln't catch her. She left me mice most mornings under the kennel....... I hope we have a mild winter or at least get some snow. It is bitterly cold without a little insulation. Ginny

Great videos. I wish I had that luck, although I don't think I could put a mealworm in my mouth though.

Bless you for feeding hungry birds! My cats are indoors, but I keep dry food out for some neighbors' cats that sometimes stay in the garage. My bird feeder resembles a plant stand; it has a tray sitting atop a column. The cats thought it was a smorgasboard! I moved it to a 'clear' spot, farther from any trees or shrubs or other 'cover' from which a cat might spring, & set it on top of a small patio table that's about the height of an end table, to give the birds a little more vertical room to flee in case of cat attack. so far, it's worked well. edited to add: Linda, you might put the feeder under some trees with high canopies; hawks hunt by sight, & trees would provide some cover. If you pick trees with high canopies, far away from shrubs that could conceal other predators, it might enable the birds to eat without being eaten. This post was edited by sylviatexas on Tue, Nov 26, 13 at 13:12

It is much easier to spray with water. I keep a spray nozzle on the hose and I can pick it up and spray a stream a good distance. Farther than you could spray with a water gun. I yell at them at the same time. It really does work. I have always fed the birds and I have more cats than you can count because the shelter asks me sometimes to take cats that have been neutered but there for so long and no one adopted them. They help out with my cat food and vet bills for them. They also vaccinate them for me. I know a lot of people are convinced that all outside cats catch birds. They don't. But, the ones that do....are very determined. There used to be a snake here that hid in the sunflower seed hulls under the feeder and caught birds that came down to the ground to eat them. I saw him eat a cardinal and a dove. I didn't kill the snake....because I don't do that...but even though I hated that he did it, I understand that is nature and what snakes do. Still, I wouldn't want my cats to kill birds, because they are well fed. Almost every morning I find a little dead mouse that "someone" killed. They don't eat them. I don't put out poison, and I have no near neighbors so I give it to one of the possums. It's a treat for them. What I hate more than anything is the cats killing lizards. They will just about all do that. Still, there are lots of lizards here and lots of geckos, which must have come from some other place because they aren't native to this area. I guess the eggs came in on plants or something. They lay the cutest little eggs. White, and look like tiny little chicken eggs.