robin
Terri Webster Schrandt

Sunday Stills: Let’s Feed the #Birds in February

Sources tell us that February is Feed the Birds Month, with Feb 3rd designated as the official bird-feeding day.

“Feed the birds in winter; in return, they will feed your soul with the look of gratitude!’”– Mehmet Murat Ildan

dark eyed junco
Dark-eyed Junco caught in the act

In the northern hemisphere, February is the last stretch of winter, and wild birds need extra help when their winter stores start to run out. By February, seeds, grains, and other feed are buried under snow and mud, or have already been eaten.

If you are a fan of birds, you might know that the entire month of February is National Feed the Birds month and the month for The Great Backyard Bird Count.

I have participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count for several years. It is sponsored by the Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab, as indicated in the links above.

In Eastern Washington, we observe a diverse range of winter birds, including Dark-Eyed Juncos (a type of sparrow), House Finches, Northern Flickers (woodpeckers), American Robins, California Quail, and various crows and ravens.

Northern Flicker
Northern Flicker
Northern Flicker feeding
Northern Flicker hangs for food
Purple finch feeding
House finch feeding
raven
Raven

Most of these are ground scavengers, and I put out plenty of black-oil sunflower seeds and other food. The seeds that don’t get gobbled up may grow into good-sized sunflowers by mid-summer!

robin
Early bird Robin, waiting for worms

The quail are with us all year ’round.

covey of quail
Covey of Quail

In fact, they love to flock under our deck to hide from Brodie!

Male Quail
Male Quail Watching from our Deck

Brodie is a Boykin Spaniel, specifically bred as a bird dog. He caught a baby quail a few years ago, much to my dismay!

Brodie and frozen ball
If I can’t have a bird, please throw the snow-covered ball!

Over the past 10 years, I’ve enjoyed capturing local birds wherever we’ve traveled. This patient California Seagull, was caught posing for food near San Diego’s Shelter Island.

seagull
I pose for food!

Last September in Yellowstone National Park, corvids ruled the roosts… magpies, crows, and ravens! This juvenile Magpie already learned quickly that humans drop goodies at the picnic areas.

Juvenile Magpie
Juvenile Magpie

Juncos love to hang out in the trees in big flocks, quickly descending to the ground to get those seeds! This guy was a little camera-shy!

junco
Bashful Junco, last on the card

“In order to see birds, it is necessary to become a part of the silence.” ― Robert Lynd

Sharing images of Brodie, the raven, and magpie for Johnbo’s Cellpic Sunday, and the bashful Junco for Brian’s Last on the Card.

All other images in this post were captured with my Lumix FZ300 camera.

graphic

Sunday Stills Photo Challenge Reminders

The Sunday Stills weekly-themed photo challenge is easy to join. You have all week to share and link your post. Please use your own original images, whether new or from your archives.

  • Remember to title your blog post a little differently from mine.
  • Please create a new post for the theme or link to a recent one.
  • Entries for this theme can be posted all week.
  • Tag your post “Sunday Stills.”
  • Don’t forget to create a pingback to this post so that other participants can read your post.
  • I also recommend adding your post’s URL to the comments.

For those residing in the southern hemisphere, tell us about your experiences feeding the birds in winter!

If you are participating in the photo challenge, I look forward to seeing how you interpret this week’s theme! Creativity is encouraged, so please share your own photographs (old or new), poems, original short stories, and music inspired by the theme. Join me next week as we explore the wondrous colors of AMETHYST (shades of purple.”

“To feed a bird is to touch the sky with a small act of kindness.” — Nature Proverb

Bitmoji Birding

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109 comments

  1. What a beautiful collection of bird photos, Terri. So many of them. Really like the capture of the Northern flicker on the fencing and what looks like flecks of snow (?) around it. It looks like its right at home there out in the elements. The slight red coloring around its eyes stands out 🙂 The quails look like they like to stick together. I guess that’s what flocks and family do.

    Where I am here in Australia it’s summer. We have been having a really hot summer this year, and the birds around my place have gone a bit quiet – black eagles, brown birds, mynas and so on. I think they are sheltering from the heat. When it starts to cool down, I think we’ll not just see them more but also hear from them more 😄

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  2. Oh, I didn’t know February was bird feeding month. That’s pretty cool and so are your photos. It’s great to see all the different birds. I actually started feeding the birds last year from my balcony. I will try and see if I can get a good picture of the cute chubby birdies coming to my bird feeder. 😀

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  5. In my life, I have had a few messy encounters with birds and have never cared much for them. But your bird photographs have inspired me to give birds a second chance. We don’t have much of a variety around here. Nothing like your flicker, finch, robin or quail, though. Just gorgeous, detailed captures of each feathered friends. Love the quote about feeding birds. I am doing that these days – mostly pigeons – but that qualifies, I hope.

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  15. I have a bird feeder that I can see from my living room window. It’s quite entertaining watching the birds take turns. Often two are on the feeder at once while the others fly around impatiently waiting for their turn. I don’t know much about birds yet (this is all new to me) but I’ve seen at least four different species.

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  17. I love your bird photos, Terri. They’re just fabulous. Our birds are doing okay with the complete lack of snow and unseasonably warm weather. No quail on the deck though, which are the cutest little birds. And Brody with the snowy ball… lol. I’m glad it’s not a bird. I hope February is good to you. Hugs.

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  19. Such a beautiful theme, and I love these photos you captured, Terri!

    Brodie is so adorable!

    I’m aiming to travel around London and other locations during the course of this year with my camera to capture the best of nature, and these photos you’ve produced are inspiring!

    This post was so refreshing to read, and it instantly brightened my afternoon.

    Thank you for sharing these stunning moments!

    Alex Smithson 😌✨📸

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  20. I love all the different varieties of birds you have, Terri. Some, like the Northern Flicker, we don’t have, or I’ve never seen in the UK. Living by the sea, we get lots of seagulls, who can terrorise the smaller birds. I’ve learnt to cut up food into tiny bits, so the seagulls can’t see it, but the smaller birds flock to it.

    With all the rain we’ve had recently, our birds are filling up on earthworms. There are plenty for them, so the feeding stops until we get a very cold snap and everything freezes, like we had at the beginning of January. We also feed the hedgehogs and local foxes.

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    • Thank you, Hugh! I actually miss seagulls, after years of seeing them daily, even in Sacramento. Back in the late 70s, the seagull population that nested in Mono Lake near Yosemite NP, in the Eastern Sierras, were endangered. They represented 1/4 of the entire gull population. City of Los Angeles was taking water out of the rivers that fed Mono Lake, creating havoc to the entire environment. Legislation changed everything thank goodness.

      I’ll always appreciate seagulls for that reason.

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      • That’s sad about the seagulls, Terri. They can be a real nuisance here. I’ve seen them dive-bomb adults and children to get hold of ice cream, chips, sandwiches and any other food stuffs. Some restaurants have also stopped outside dining because the seagulls are a nuisance. But that’s only because we humans drop so much litter and food on the floor and some even feed the gulls chips and other food stuff, so the gulls have adapted to eating stuff we humans eat. They are also very good at ripping over rubbish bags and trash cans to get to what has been placed in there. I don’t recall them being like that when I was a child, so it only seems to be recent thing.

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  22. Hi Terri, I always enjoy seeing what birds you have over there and you’ve shared some great photos and information in your post. Looking at your photo of the magpie, I think your magpies are a little different to ours here in Australia. A lovely collection!

    Here’s my post where our wildlife have been sweltering in the heat not the snow!

    https://debs-world.com/2026/02/01/heatwave-happenings-thirsty-birds-and-wildlife-sundaystills/

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  23. Terri, your bird photos are so full of personality. You have amazing talent capturing their faces. I also love the covey of quail. The contrast between them and the snow is fantastic. I have no idea how to be a patient as you are to get those photos! Well done, my friend. 🙂 xxx

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  27. I loved feeding the birds but had to stop due to a new neighbor with his dog out 24/7/365 and we got rats. I do feed the birds in the Park and got to do so finally today after a three-week absence. I think the Seagulls are good posers and I took about 50 shots of some Ring-billed bulls on a trip to Wyandotte last September. They don’t need to be bribed either like squirrels. I love the picture of the Robin! And also “Bird Dog” Brodie. You are lucky you have so many birds at the feeder. I didn’t have that big of a variety. I also participate in the Backyard Bird Count – hopefully I get to the Park to do it but I think last year I just did it from the backyard as the weather was bad and I have a lot of Sparrows in my large Yellow Vicary Bush. My post will be along later as usual – feeding the ducks, but it wasn’t me doing so. 🙂

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      • We had a lovely day here yesterday, everything was clear to drive/walk, then we got about two inches of snow and a wintry mix today … so much for that. And our Michigan woodchuck did agreed with Phil. I hated to stop feeding and giving water to the birds – it broke my heart. I was happy to see birds yesterday at the Park, my Cardinal pair came right over and the Jays. No Chickadees and I bought the chipped peanuts just for then, but I’ve been there so sporadically this Winter they probably found a feeder in the area to feast on instead.

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  29. What a lovely post! I, regretfully, have largely taken our local birds for granted and don’t honor them as you do. There’s plenty for them to eat around between our native plants and the feed they get treated to in our poultry yard, but I’d like to actually spend time observing them. Thanks for this wonderful inspiration!

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  30. Love all the birds, but I really enjoyed seeing the robin! I am in Pennsylvania right now, surrounded by a foot of snow and in cold temps of -6°. We’d love to see some robins! They are always signs of spring for us!
    Here in Pennsylvania, we are hoping the Groundhog says Spring is on its way.
    Stay warm my friend!

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  33. I feed the birds all year. I don’t get robins at my feeders though. And your juncos are entirely different in color than the ones we see! I have never seen quail here, though I’ve heard them when I’m in upper Michigan. My regulars are cardinals, juncos, titmice, sparrows, finch (several kinds), bluejays, and chickadees.

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  34. Terri,

    My Mom loved watching birds at the feeders outside her window at the nursing home. When she passed, I moved several of them to our home and suspended them from a Dogwood outside my office window. I filled them with Black Oil Sunflower Seeds. The feeders attract Purple Finches, Flicker and Downy Woodpeckers, and Chickadees. I also hang Seeded Suet Cakes that I get from Walmart. Woodpeckers love them. California Quail are unique looking. We have the Bobwhite Quail in the South. Fun post! Have a great week! Joe

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  37. I remember having many more different types of birds around here. Now, it seems that there are mostly crows and tree finches… and, of course, the crazy, noisy, wild parrots. I’m a bit surprised that get quails where you live. For some reason, I always think of them flourishing in the south western states.

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  38. A fabulous post all round Terri. So many birds. It is hard to have a bird dog and not have them wanting to follow their natural instincts. I might find something to contribute 😁
    The shy Junco is the perfect last photo.
    Thanks for joining in 😀

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  40. Love these, Terri! Normally at 50-60 ft from our house, I moved my feeders and bird bath closer up to our open back porch before the storm so I would be able to tend to them. Birds now are all over my back porch, sitting around out of the winds, waiting their turns or me to bring more. I have bird poop and bird seed shells everywhere! 🤪

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  46. A great bird selection, Terri. I love your robin too, I think the black head is the only significant difference between your robin and ours. I haven’t seen a juvenile magpie before either.

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    • Thank you, Graham! I also saw your anonymous post 😁 It must be a WP glitch, happens to me, too. I’ll have commented one one post, then have to log in to comment on another post.

      Its been foggy and cold here. What little snow we had is gone. Its warming now too. I dug some old pics out of the archives this week. We did recently have a Robin invasion….around 30 flew in a couple of weeks ago but disappeared after they hopped around the yard. They’ll be back this month.

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