FOOD YEAR-ROUND

The most obvious way to provide food is with bird feeders. Fill feeders (various heights at least 50 feet apart) with foods such as sunflower, niger, proso millet, and cracked corn. Birds also like suet (beef fat) and peanut butter mixed with seeds in a mesh onion bag hung 9 feet above ground. In the summer, be sure to buy suet that is labeled to withstand high temperatures without spoiling.

Remember to clean your bird feeders and bird baths at least three times a year with a 10 percent Clorox solution. Diseases are spread at places where birds congregate - a few years ago, the finches were suffering from conjunctivitis (an eye disease) which was being spread at dirty bird feeders.

Natural vegetation also provides acorns, nuts, berries, fruits, buds, catkins, pollen and nectar for birds, mammals, and insects. When choosing your plants, be sure to pick trees bearing nuts and fruits throughout the year. Berries provide Vitamin C and fat for energy for birds in the fall and winter. Insects make up 90% of most birds' diets, so berries provide valuable nutrition in the wintertime, when bug populations are low. Birds sometimes go to plants that have berries looking for the insects that live between the berries. In your garden design, alternate low and high shrub borders that produce berries and fruits and leave openings in shrubs for wildlife paths and fly-ways.

Ruby Throated Hummingbirds visit SC from March until November. You can feed them by making a solution of 4 parts water to 1 part sugar, boiling it for one minute, let it cool, fill the feeder, and put the remaining solution in the refrigerator. In the summer heat, it is important to replace the solution every 3 to 7 days, because the sugar solution will ferment and make the hummingbirds sick. If you plan to go on a long vacation, it is better to take the feeder down. Better yet, plant cross vine or trumpet creeper, and the birds will have some nectar to eat whether you are there or not! More information on feeding hummingbirds:

Butterflies go through many changes throughout their life-cycle. In each stage, they need different types of food. Adult butterflies need nectar from flowers. When the adults lay their eggs, they will only lay them on a certain type of plant - their host plant. Each species of butterfly has a different type of plant that "hosts" the eggs, and subsequently, the caterpillars. Once the caterpillar hatches out, it will begin to eat the leaves and stems of the host plant. So, to provide good food sources for butterflies, you need to have nectar plants as well as host plants.