A good blend of seeds is essential to birds’ survival. One important component is fat. Peanuts, sunflower seeds and suet can easily be incorporated into any feeding station. Keeping an unfrozen water supply can be challenging but the birds will reward your efforts by drinking and bathing often.

Shrubs, trees and brush provide warmth and if placed close to a feeder, safety from predators. If you are lucky some of the not so common wintering birds will grace your feeder, look for Pine Siskin, Purple Finch and Red-breasted Nuthatch.

If you are willing to leave the comfort of your home, our coastal shores, marshes, meadows and cornfields offer some of the best places for winter birding. Wintering ducks can readily be found. Common Eider, Long-tailed Duck and the resplendent Harlequin are visiting our shores now, along with a variety of Scoters.  Make sure to pick out the Oystercatchers, look to the sky for Northern Gannet and along the shoreline for Sanderlings. Throughout our marshes and lakes find Northern Pintail, Gadwall, Canvasback, Hooded Mergansers, Northern Shovelers, Mallard and Black and Ruddy Duck. 

Snow Buntings, Horned Larks and Lapland Longspur feed between cornstalks and also along our coastal shores. Eastern Meadowlarks, a resident, prefer meadows and marsh edges, their bright-yellow breast makes them easier to locate.  Predators such as Snowy, Short-eared and Barn Owls, Red-tailed and Rough-legged Hawks and Northern Harriers take advantage of these open habitats.

Snowy Owls visiting for the winter are becoming more common. Two years ago two Snowy Owls spent the winter in the Meadowlands and Liberty State Park, and points further south, report at least one or two every year. That same year there was an influx of Rough-legged Hawks competing with the owls for food. Another visitor and more common, Short-eared Owls can be found beginning their hunt for food at dawn or dusk over marshes and fallow fields.

Our woodlands and forests are great places to look, especially with a water source nearby. Cooper’s Hawks are fairly common and will also visit your feeders, picking off unsuspecting birds. Red-shouldered Hawks like to mix it up and can be found in more open woodlands as well as open riparian habitat. Nesting in tall, sturdy trees, Bald Eagles hunt over open water for fish and ducks. An influx of eagles visiting from the north makes them easier to find during the coldest months.  Check out those trees, resident and visiting woodpeckers, like the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, can be found along with Brown Creeper.  

Remember it is hunting season!  Many birds can be found throughout our Wildlife Management Areas, but so can hunters.  Check with New Jersey Division of Fish & Wildlife for the hunting schedule.  Enjoy your birding but be safe, if you must go where the hunters go, wear the appropriate brightly colored clothing.

Don’t know where to go?  Check out where other people are birding at:

• New Jersey Birding
• Birding and Wildlife Trails
• eBird