Here are the birds I see summer and winter. I see a surprising number of Redwing Black Birds along the Puyallup River. Also along the Puyallup River are Bald Eagles, but the picture you are seeing here was taken in Alaska. Stellar Jays and Dark Eyed Juncos are in my back yard a lot and they love the bird feeder. And Anna’s Hummingbirds love the flowers and feeders we keep full all year long.
There are quite a few birds that do not always migrate but here a few of them that you will likely see all winter long here in the NW. Why do they not migrate like other birds? Because they can adapt to cold weather and still find food. How do they do it? Birds have feat made of bones and tendons, with very little muscle so they can warm them up easily. Some eat more and gain wait before cold weather strikes in, but can still find food in winter, a lot from wonderful bird feeders. Some have extra feathers in the winter and some are able to fluff up their feathers. Some stay together in large groups to stay warm. The little Anna’s Humming Bird has a unique cold weather adaptation. They do a different kind of hibernation called torpor. In chilly weather they settle in trees and their body temp can go from 100 to 50 as they sleep and the metabolic rate also goes way down. But every now and they wake up and go out to find food and everything goes back up until they torpor again. Thankfully a lot of us now help them with a hummingbird feeder.
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