It’s National Bird Feeding Month.

Given the snowy winter we’re having, our friend Ben felt that it was appropriate to point out that February is National Bird Feeding Month. With all the snow cover, our feathered friends will be especially grateful for a little help from us. But what if you’re on a restricted budget and wonder how you’ll stretch it to feed your family, much less wild birds?

Here are a few tips that will work for the frugal and for anyone else, for that matter:

* Stick to the basics, part one. Simple tube feeders, an elevated tray or hopper (cabin-style) feeder, and a cage for suet provide plenty of opportunity for backyard birds to eat. You can find the cabin-style feeders with suet cages attached at either end if you don’t want to buy a separate suet cage, but compare pricing before choosing either option.

* Stick to the basics, part two. Forget the fancy seed mixes if you’re budget-minded. Fill your tube feeders with black-hull sunflower seed (a favorite of most overwintering birds) and your tray or cabin feeder with a basic birdseed mix. (Try to get one with a lot of millet, the small, round, yellow-beige seeds, since most birds prefer them over cheaper food like cracked corn and sorghum, also round but larger and orange. You can always enrich the mix with an added scoop of black-hull sunflower seed.) You can find good prices on seed and suet blocks at feed stores like Agway and Tractor Supply, and don’t overlook your local grocery; ours has started carrying a store brand of birdseed as well as seed and seed mixes from a local feed mill.

* Get down and dirty. I’ve seen and tested some great inexpensive tube feeders, from plastic Droll Yankees feeders for about $7 to a converter kit for about $3.50 that turns a 2-litre soda bottle into a tube feeder.  But if the thought of paying even a penny extra on a feeder is more than you can face, just toss the birdseed directly onto the snow (or ground). Several beloved species of backyard birds, including juncos, cardinals, towhees, and mourning doves, prefer to eat seed on the ground, anyway; you’ll typically find them lurking on the ground under birdfeeders waiting to snap up seed spilled by other birds.

* What about suet? Suet is a preferred food in winter because its high fat content helps fuel the very high-powered metabolisms of birds and keep them going during cold weather. Today’s pre-formed suet cakes, often with seeds and fruits embedded in them, are hugely convenient, and I regularly find them for $1.99 at Agway, Tractor Supply, groceries, and hardware stores. But there are cheaper alternatives: In the winter, our local grocery sells chunks of raw suet in its meat department. You can hang them up in a mesh bag (the kind onions come in) and give your birds high-calorie fuel for a dollar or so. Can’t face suet? There’s an even less expensive option your backyard birds will love: Coat a slice of stale bread with peanut butter and set it out for the birds. If you’re feeling opulent, embed a few raisins in the peanut butter before setting out the slice.

* Water is free. And when every stream and puddle is frozen over, providing a shallow dish or bowl of water can mean more to the birds in your backyard than any amount of food. Sure, the ideal is a heated birdbath that lets the birds sip warm water even in freezing temperatures. But if you can’t afford one, setting out a shallow dish and switching it off with a second dish once the water freezes (so you’ll always have one thawing to replace the one that’s freezing) will doubtless win you bonus points in Heaven. 

A final thought, if it will help you justify that bag of birdseed: If you get as much enjoyment from backyard birdwatching as our friend Ben and Silence Dogood (not to mention our many cats, our friend and fellow blog contributor, Richard Saunders, and our heavy-duty birding friends like our friend Rudy), it’s easy to think of birdwatching as entertainment. Consider how much it costs to take your family to a movie and buy all the swill—I mean, movie food—they insist on eating. Geez, you could treat yourselves to a fancy restaurant and rent the movie on Netflix or get it free from the local library for the same price! But I digress. The point is that you and your family will enjoy hours of entertainment watching the birds in your backyard, for less than $1 a day.

So go for it! Feed the birds, this month and every month (or at least until the weather warms up enough to support the insects birds typically eat through the summer). And enjoy the show.