Why are there no birds at your feeder?

From Don & Lillian Stokes’s blog: “Right now we are getting reports from New England to FL that people are worried because they have no birds at their feeders. We have fewer birds at ours. Relax, they will be back, as soon as it is colder, and the wild foods have been depleted.

There is a great abundance of wild food now available to birds now. All the rain we have had in the East, from spring (remember the record floods) through summer and into fall, has made for a bumper crop of many wild foods. Plus the weather has been warm and insects are still flying.

Here in NH, our crabapple trees are loaded, winterberry holly is full of red berries, other berry producing trees and shrubs are laden. This was a very good blueberry year. The fields are full of the seeds of grasses, weeds, coneflowers and other composite flowers. There are acorns and our hemlock trees have lots of cones.

However, winter is coming. It will get colder. Insects will disappear or hibernate. Seeds and berries will get eaten. Then the birds will come back to your feeders.
Meanwhile, keep your feeders clean and stocked with quality bird seeds. Sooner or later they will be back. Promise.”