Give Your Old Christmas Tree to the Birds

Before you send your old Christmas tree to the garbage, consider donating it to the bird life in your neighborhood. An old Christmas tree will provide shelter for the birds and is an excellent place to put out food for them.

Although a Christmas tree will dry up and become a fire hazard indoors under warm temperatures and low humidity, the tree will stay green outdoors throughout the winter, turning brown and unsightly in the spring as the weather warms. Thus your old Christmas tree can be a pleasing addition to your winter landscape as well as a haven for birds.

To provide the most shelter possible for the birds, place the tree on the south or east side of the house, away from the prevailing north and west winds of winter. Anchor the tree securely by setting the stump into the ground and securing the top of the tree with twine to nearby buildings or trees.

You may wish to do more with your old Christmas tree than just provide shelter for the birds. Old Christmas trees make excellent bird feeding stations, providing shelter while the birds are feeding. Decorate your tree with strings of popcorn, cranberries or raisins. Press suet into the branches or hang it in mesh bags such as those that contain onions and fruit in the supermarket.

Suet can also be provided as a mix with bird seed in suet seed balls. These may be purchased or they can be homemade. To make your own suet seed balls, mix bird seed and a small amount of peanut butter with the suet while the suet is warm enough to be molded. Mold the suet and seed mixture around a wire hook that can be used to attach the suet seed ball to the tree.

Popcorn will be attractive to cardinals, finches and grosbeaks. The cranberries and raisins should attract cedar waxwings, finches and any wintering robins in the area. Woodpeckers and nuthatches will be attracted to the suet, while the suet seed balls will attract juncos, chickadees, finches and native sparrows.

If you decide to start feeding the birds, be consistent with your feeding. Feeding birds in the winter results in their reliance on you for part of their diet, lack of this food during a severe cold period or storm could result in the birds starving to death before they could find another food source.

Source: Philip L. Nixon, Ph.D., Entomology, University of Illinois, Urbana