Water In Winter
A customer recently asked me, “Won’t birds freeze if I give them water in a birdbath in the winter and they get wet and cold?”
This is common concern, but only when it is extremely cold and the temperature dips to zero degrees or below for a prolonged period of time. Even then birds normally seem to know when to drink and when to bath. Offering heated water will attract a huge variety and number of birds.
Why? Well, in the winter you will see birds looking like they are all puffed up. They are puffing out their feathers to trap air inside to act like a feather blanket to keep them warm. When their feathers are soiled and matted, they lose their insulation effect and then the birds will suffer and even die. Keeping water out is actually more important in the winter than in the summer. You might consider a heated bird bath or a bird bath heater. Most of these have thermostats that only have them running when it is 35 degrees or less, it only costs pennies a day in electricity to run them,