Your feeder birds, along with all the birds in your neighborhood, need water frequently on a regular basis. Food is one thing, but in our hot weather clean, fresh water is probably more important.
Birds drink from birdbaths, lakes, streams, swamps, puddles. Water is water. They also can take moisture from food, like insects or animal flesh.
In hot environments, smaller songbirds lose water to evaporation, their large surface-area-to-volume ratio causing them to evaporate water quickly, according to the "Cornell Lab Handbook of Bird Biology."
This means they must obtain water frequently. They need to drink at least a couple of times a day. Small birds need to drink every two or three hours in weather like ours at present.
Not all birds will visit a birdbath for drink or bath. Hummingbirds, for example, get their dietary fluid needs from the nectar they drink, from either flowers or your feeders. They still need water for bathing and preening. One way they can get it is to fly through the mist that a lawn sprinkler can provide. A garden hose set to mist will do.
A sheet of plastic catching the falling spray will collect puddles that other birds will use. All you need is a plastic lawn bag cut and spread or an old dry-cleaning bag. Make sure the water puddles. Doing this in a shaded place is best.
Moving water attracts more birds than still water. A dripper, being used for a drink by the chickadee in the photo, works well. You need a closed plastic container (like an orange juice bottle) with two small holes (made with a heated needle), one for the water drop to escape, the other for airflow to replace the water volume.
Form a harness with rope or string or wire. Hang the dripper above your birdbath. (A large full bottle might be too heavy.) Find step-by-step instructions at tinyurl.com/mvf4anht.
Birds do not waste water in urination, by the way. Their urinary waste is concentrated, eliminated as one with their solid waste.
Lifelong birder Jim Williams can be reached at woodduck38@gmail.com.
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