There are more blue jays than normal, too. In November, it was a far different scene. Bird feeders from Castine to Kennebunk were overflowing with seeds and suet cakes, but no one showed up for the party. People began flooding Audubon centers and bird food stores in the Northeast with anxious phone calls, questioning why their usual flocks of nuthatches, cardinals and mourning doves had seemingly disappeared. Abundant wild food in the woods was the answer, the experts said.
Birds prefer wild sources of food, taking only about a quarter of their diets from backyard feeders.
This has been a spectacular seed year for Mother Nature. The woods in Maine and New Hampshire spread a banquet this fall of nuts, seeds and berries for birds to devour. There were plentiful white pine seeds and black cherries for songbirds, as well as the tiny red berries of mountain ash. Blue jays feasted on the egg-shaped acorns of the red oak. But now that the temperatures have dropped and there is snow on the ground, making wild food harder to find, the birds are flocking back to the feeders.