Where Your Backyard Birds Go on Freezing Nights

Tonight, when the sun goes down, a little bird that weighs about as much as two quarters is going to sit out there in the dark for close to fifteen hours. No food. No fire. Maybe below zero. And at first light, it'll be on your feeder like nothing happened. Today I'll walk you through how your backyard birds make it through a freezing winter night: the fat they burn, the down coat they fluff up, why their feet don't freeze, how a chickadee turns its own thermostat down, and where they actually sleep (hint: it isn't a nest). Then I'll give you 7 simple things you can do this winter to help them make it to morning. Pour yourself something hot and sit with me at the window. 📖 Hal's Year-Round Feeder Almanac: the November and December chapters have the full winter plan (plus a free Nectar Card) 👉 https://halwhitaker.pages.dev/ 🐦 Project FeederWatch (Cornell Lab and Birds Canada), count your feeder birds this winter: https://feederwatch.org/ ⏱ CHAPTERS 0:00 Fifteen hours in the dark 0:48 Why a small bird loses heat so fast 1:43 A winter day is a race 2:26 Your birds know a storm is coming 3:07 Tool #1: the best down coat ever made 3:47 Tool #2: tuck in 4:03 "Hal, how come their feet don't freeze?" 4:39 Mourning doves and frostbite 4:57 Tool #3: shiver 5:10 Tool #4: the chickadee turns its thermostat down 5:39 Hummingbird torpor 5:57 Thousands of hidden seeds (and a brain that grows) 6:34 Where birds really sleep (it isn't a nest) 7:01 The cardinal hotel by your porch 7:21 Chickadees, nuthatches and woodpeckers sleep in holes 7:42 The January I'm not proud of 8:04 Communal roosting: bluebirds stacked like pancakes 9:02 The snow sleepers: ruffed grouse 9:35 Redpolls and their built-in lunch box 10:35 Owls on long winter nights 11:08 The worst night of all: the ice storm 11:52 #1 Feed in the late afternoon, and feed them fat 12:36 #2 Suet 12:55 #3 Water beats food 13:32 #4 Give them a bedroom (even your old Christmas tree) 14:16 #5 Roost boxes 14:57 #6 Don't clean up your yard too much 15:47 #7 Leave them be at night 16:01 Don't quit feeding in January 16:28 Project FeederWatch 17:18 The first bird at sunrise 17:59 What's the coldest morning you've watched birds? 💬 Tell me in the comments: what's the coldest morning you've ever watched birds at your feeder? SOURCES • Chaplin (1976), Journal of Comparative Physiology: black-capped chickadees lower their body temperature at night (controlled hypothermia) • Barnea & Nottebohm (1994), PNAS: new neurons in the chickadee hippocampus each fall, during food caching • Brittingham & Temple (1988), Ecology: winter survival of chickadees with and without feeders in Wisconsin • Breuner et al. (2013), Journal of Experimental Biology: white-crowned sparrows ate more when air pressure dropped, as it does before a storm • Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds: chickadee winter fat cycle; common redpoll cold tolerance, snow roosting and throat pouch; pygmy nuthatch communal roosts; eastern bluebird communal roosting; mourning dove frostbite • Cornell Lab / Project FeederWatch: winter feeding, heated birdbaths (no additives), roost boxes, brush piles and old Christmas trees • Countercurrent heat exchange in birds' legs: standard ornithology texts (for example, Gill, Ornithology) • Ruffed grouse snow roosting: state wildlife agencies (for example, Pennsylvania Game Commission) Hal is a character. His personal stories are part of the character. The research above is real and cited. #backyardbirds #winterbirds #chickadee