Put a shallow dish of water near my feeder 3 weeks ago and the cardinals went crazy

I was reading online that birds need water more than food sometimes, especially in dry spells. So I grabbed a old pie tin from the back of my cabinet and filled it with maybe an inch of water. Placed it right next to my sunflower seed feeder in the backyard. Before I had maybe 2 cardinals a day if I was lucky. After about a week I started getting 8 or 9 cardinals visiting daily plus some finches and even a blue jay showed up last Tuesday. The water gets dirty fast though so I have to dump and rinse it every other day. Anybody else try putting out water and see a big jump in visitors?

3 comments

3 Comments

kellys7823d ago

You tried the pie tin thing, right? My buddy down the street did the same last summer. He put out a shallow baking dish with rocks in it so the birds wouldn't drown. Within a week his yard was like a bird hotel. He said he had to top it off every morning and clean it every few days cause the water got gross fast. But he was getting cardinals, robins, even a little wren splashing around in there. He said the water brought in way more birds than his feeder ever did alone.

adam_patel23d ago

Honestly, the pie tin thing sounds dead on. My buddy tried something similar last spring with one of those big glass oven dishes, threw a couple of smooth stones in it. He said he forgot about it for a few days and came back to find a whole bunch of leaves and mosquito larvae floating in it though. He ended up scrubbing it with a brush every other day or so, but he said the blue jays would show up within an hour of him putting out fresh water.

wesley18123d ago

Did you read that Audubon article about water being the biggest draw for backyard birds?