I have often wondered how God feeds the birds when northern Pennsylvania is grasped firmly in the jaws of winter. I couldn’t really picture the birds flocking to God’s bird feeders like they flock to mine. Then one day my eyes were opened to some of the ingenious ways God feeds the birds during the winter.
This particular day—the one on which I joined the birds at one of God’s bird feeders—was a frigid January day. I was walking through the snow-drowned woods. The woods was silent when the snow wasn’t crunching under my feet. Even the babbling of the creek was muffled by ice and snow.
Then along came the cheery twitter of a flock of foraging birds fluttering through the trees and bushes—chickadees, titmice, a nuthatch or two, and some kinglets. I wondered, What are they finding to eat?
I watched them closely for a bit and then crossed the frozen creek to the far bank and joined them. Of course I wasn’t fluttering or tweeting like they were, but I was searching like the birds were.
It didn’t take long to find out what the birds were eating. As I searched the bark and branches of the birches, I spotted an inchworm jutting out like a sore thumb. It was trying to look like a twig. I poked it, and it slowly bent over as if to inch away even though the temperature was well below freezing. I imagined spending the long, cold winter hanging onto an icy, snow-covered branch pretending to be a twig so as not to be eaten by a bird. I thought, What a strange way to spend…wait! This is one way God feeds the birds!
In order for the birds to be able to find food with snow on the ground and almost no bugs, He gave this kind of caterpillar, the one-spotted variant Hypagyrtis unipuncta, (and several other kinds) the habit of hiding in plain sight all winter long. Ingenious! Now I could see that the birds were actually cheerily flocking to God’s bird feeder.
Since that day, I have noticed other ways God feeds the birds.
One snowy winter day, I was chasing a Snowy Owl. As I searched down this road and that one through farm country, I kept seeing Horned Larks in the fields by the roadside. Eventually I took the opportunity to photograph Horned Larks feeding on curly dock seeds. Many seeds still hung on the stalks, but some had scattered onto the snow.
God provided the larks with these “weed seed bird feeders” by designing the curly dock to keep its seeds in store much of the winter. Some seeds will be dispersed by the bitter winter winds, some will be eaten by the birds, and some will fall with the stalks in the spring and sprout where they land.
Similarly, there are “weeds” with seed pods that are wind seed shakers, such as the evening primrose. I saw some goldfinches eating evening primrose seeds, but they left before I could get their picture, and before they had torn open all the seed pods. If they don’t come back, the seeds in the remaining pods will be dispersed by the wind.
Another mid-January day as I drove on a dirt mountain road, I saw some titmice having a scuffle on the side of the road. They flew away as I approached. As I passed the spot, I saw something yellow on the ground and, wondering if that was what the birds were after, I stopped and went back. The yellow thing I saw was a very bird-pecked, partially eaten acorn. Since then, I like to think of every oak tree as a bird feeder.
During winter walks, I’ve flushed birds, like wrens or juncos, from sheltered areas such as overhanging rocks. There are a lot of those special places in our mountains. Once I crawled through the teeth of the jaws of winter (that’s what those icicles made me think of) to explore a rock shelter’s habitat. Among the rock shelter’s inhabitants were spiders, springtails, and flies. Those springtails were actually walking around on the icicles. If I were a hungry bird, I would’ve had a feast in that rock shelter.
Our winterberry bush is another example of one of God’s ingenious bird feeders. The bright red berries hang on all winter, advertising that they are there for the birds to eat. However, it’s fairly obvious those berries aren’t the birds’ first choice, because the winterberries can be there most of the winter. But birds will show up to feed on them during and right after snow and ice storms. I’ve seen cardinals, bluebirds, Blue Jays, and robins in our winterberry bush, treating the winterberries like emergency rations.
Downy Woodpeckers and chickadees have an unusual and special bird feeder—the goldenrod ball galls. The goldenrod stalks stand most of the winter, and the ball galls can each contain a little larva that these birds seem to relish. Have you heard them pecking in the goldenrod patch? The longer bills of the Downy Woodpeckers allow them to peck a tidy hole into a gall to reach the larva. However, since chickadees have short bills, they have to work a bit harder. They make a messy hole as they peck and tear away at the gall in order to reach the morsel of food hidden in the center.
God has placed bird feeders everywhere—from acorns to inchworm “twigs” to winterberry emergency food bushes. Keep your ears tuned and your eyes peeled this winter to see if you can spy still more ways God feeds the birds.