Robins may drop in for a winter snack

Q I feel sorry for a robin visiting my back yard. I bought some dried mealworms to feed him but what else can I do to help him?

A In wintertime, the robin diet is made up primarily of fruit. In the natural world in our area, this generally means hackberry, buckthorn, crabapple and mountain ash fruits. Robins don't often visit feeders, since their diet is made up of so much wild food. But studies of robin diets suggest their first choices are dark blue and red fruits, so try offering raisins, currants, dried or frozen blueberries and craisins. You could place fruit on the ground near where the robin perches, or on a platform feeder.

You could also offer small pieces of suet or bird pudding. Robins can be opportunists and even have been reported eating frozen minnows on shorelines and seed under feeders.

Mourning dove concerns Q A mourning dove is sitting in the snow under my feeder. Isn't this unusual?

A Mourning doves are year-round residents in our area. If they can find grains to eat (cracked corn is a favorite) and water to drink, they can withstand the winter in good shape.

Homemade seed mixes Q I'd like to mix up my own finch feeding mix. Do you have any suggestions?

A Goldfinches are big fans of those little black needles called nyger seed, and they snap up small chips of sunflower seed, as well. Buy 5 or 10 pounds each of nyger seed and sunflower chips, mix them together, store in a cool place, and you have an ideal diet for goldfinches. House finches use their larger beaks to crack open black-oil sunflower and safflower seeds. No need to mix these for house finches, just offer one or the other, or both, in a feeder.

A You're fortunate to live close enough to observe one of our most beautiful hawks on a regular basis. Red-tails build a new nest every year or refurbish an older one and once their youngsters fledge, they all leave the nest. This is a good deal for great-horned owls, a species that doesn't build its own nest but uses those built by other birds, especially those of the red-tailed hawk.

Red-tails don't sleep in their nests. Instead they're known to spend the night in deciduous trees, standing erect with feet locked on a branch.

Crow slumber parties Q Those large gatherings of crows fascinate me. What's going on with them?

A Large numbers of crows gather in the city each evening in parks and cemeteries with many deciduous trees. They make a great ruckus as they fly around, call and settle in on treetops for the night. With the metro heat island effect, it's a bit warmer in the city, which may be part of the reason they do this on winter nights. Scientists don't have all the answers about this roosting behavior, although it may also provide protection from predators such as great-horned owls, and/or it just might be how this highly social species prefers to spend the night. Some speculate that these large roosts are made up of young birds that haven't yet found mates, and that older birds with mates remain on their territories winter and summer. Come spring, these nighttime roosts will disappear as the crows disperse to find territories.