Offering mealworms in winter will bring chickadees up to a window, maybe into the hand

If chickadees seem friendly and cheerful at regular backyard feeding stations, you should see what happens when you start offering mealworms! The ones in my neighborhood in northern Minnesota tap on my window when the feeder goes dry. Many of them take the mealworms right out of my hand.

I wrote an article for BirdWatching back in June 2004 explaining how to get started feeding mealworms. Everything in the article still holds, but it was focused on attracting insect-eaters in spring and summer, not winter birds. It can be a little tricky to get neighborhood birds to notice mealworms at first when freezing temperatures stop the cold-blooded insects’ movements.

Read the article "Goin' Buggy" by Laura Erickson from our June 2004 issue.

I offer my mealworms in a little acrylic feeder attached to the window by my desk in my home office. A box elder’s branches come very close to the window. I started feeding mealworms during winter.

To begin with, I put two acrylic feeders on the window, filled one with black-oil sunflower seeds, and put just two or three mealworms in the other one. They froze instantly, and it took a couple of days for a chickadee to sample one, but it apparently approved. Soon chickadees and Red-breasted Nuthatches would clear out the mealworms as quickly as I could put them in.

I started whistling the same three notes whenever I filled the feeder, and soon even if no chickadees seemed to be anywhere around, they’d materialize as soon as I whistled. One day during a blizzard, I barely had the window cranked open before one chickadee alighted on my hand to grab a mealworm. Soon several were coming to my hand.

The best thing about hand-feeding chickadees is how quickly you start noticing individual quirks. Some are very bold, others skittish. Some are noticeably heavier than others. Some sit on my hand picking up and putting down several mealworms before selecting one. Others grab one as quickly as possible and fly off. When one bird is in my hand, another may alight on a nearby branch and make the “gargle” sound. That means a higher-ranking bird is asserting his or her right to feed first. Many of the lower-ranking birds will actually put down the mealworm they’re holding before flying off -- but some grab one before flying off.

One of my favorite chickadees would land on the window frame if the feeder was empty, and tap on the window to get my attention. The curious thing about this bird was that it would never, ever alight on my hand, but it seemed fearless and not the least bit scared of me. It would alight in the nearby branches, and I’d bring the mealworms to it. Sometimes my hand accidentally brushed its breast, but that never scared it off. I wonder if it just felt squeamish about touching human flesh with its bare feet.

If you order mealworms in large quantities, shipped in a cloth bag filled with wadded newspaper (the most economical way if you’re serious about feeding them), make sure you take them out of the newspaper as soon as possible so they don’t ingest the toxic inks. Providing the most nourishing diet for your mealworms will give them a better (albeit brief) existence while making them more nutritious for your birds. I keep mine in an ice cream bucket with an inch or two of uncooked, instant oatmeal and add a few slices of apple or raw potato every few days for moisture. -- Laura Erickson, Contributing Editor

Laura Erickson writes the column "Attracting Birds" in every issue of BirdWatching Magazine.

Read more about Laura Erickson.

See the contents of our December 2011 issue, on newsstands now.

Comments

borealbeauty wrote re: Offering mealworms in winter will bring chickadees up to a window, maybe into the hand on Wed, Dec 21 2011 11:09 AM those acrylic window feeders sound useful and effective. where can i purchase them?  since i live in a remote part of canada i don't have access to bird accessory stores.

Chuck Hagner wrote re: Offering mealworms in winter will bring chickadees up to a window, maybe into the hand on Wed, Dec 21 2011 12:49 PM Your best bet is simply to go to Amazon.com and search on the phrase "bird feeder window." You'll find several different kinds of acrylic window feeders.