This is bird note.

The sun reflecting on fresh snow brightens up a gray winter scene.

But this landscape presents a challenge for birds because the ground

where they found food before the snowfall is now covered up. How will they forage

and get enough to eat? Digging through several inches of snow is not an option

for junkos or sparrows or even larger birds like Cardinals. But birds are resourceful.

They can flit under bushes where snow doesn't cover the ground

and search the leaf litter for seeds and insects.

Finch's and chickadees peck at seed heads of garden plants and weeds that stick out above the snow, and

berry bushes like hawthorns will still have dried fruit attached, attracting wax wings

and robins.

Nuthaches and woodpeckers cling to trees as they search for dormant insects and larvae hiding within the bark. Winter conditions mean higher mortality in birds,

but they're adapted to search widely for food sources,

even when snow blankets their world.

And we can help birds by keeping these food sources in mind when gardening and by maintaining our green spaces in the snowy months.

For Bird Note, I'm Michael Stein.

Support for Bird Note is provided by Jim and Beerta Faulkner from Seattle, Washington, and generous

listeners around the world. You're going to be.