Who's at my feeder?
Northern cardinal perched on a snowy bird feeder, seen from the feeder camera – one of the most common backyard birds in winter

Backyard birds · by ZIP code & month

Who's at your feeder?

Before you hang a feeder or buy a camera, meet the birds that will actually land there – for your place and every month of the year.

Draft with six places loaded – try one:

    Your feeder guests

    Backyard birds in Columbus, Ohio

    The 12 feeder birds reported most often within 25 km. Turn the wheel to move through the year.

      From your birds to your camera

      What your guests mean for a feeder camera

      Bird calendar

      The year at your feeder

      One row per bird, darkest in its strongest month. Read across to see when each bird arrives, peaks and leaves.

      Backyard birds by state

      Common backyard birds, state by state

        UK garden birds EnglandScotlandWalesNorthern Ireland

        Questions

        Feeding and watching backyard birds

        Which birds come to feeders in winter?

        It depends on where you live. In Ohio, northern cardinals, Carolina chickadees, downy woodpeckers, blue jays and dark-eyed juncos lead the winter list; in London it is robins, blue tits, great tits, blackbirds and goldfinches. Enter your ZIP code or postcode to see your own list for any month.

        How do you know which birds visit my area?

        We count millions of real bird sightings within 25 km of your place for each month of 2019–2024, keep only species that use feeders, and rank them by how often they are reported.

        What should I feed to attract more birds?

        Black oil sunflower seed or sunflower hearts suit most feeder birds. Add suet for woodpeckers and wrens, nyjer for finches, millet on a tray for sparrows and juncos, and sugar water for hummingbirds.

        Which bird feeder camera should I buy?

        Start from your birds: a seed feeder camera covers most guests, woodpeckers need a suet cage, hummingbirds need a nectar feeder camera, and chickadees, tits and bluebirds use nest box cameras in spring.

        About the data

        Where the birds come from

        Sightings: eBird Observation Dataset (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) and other datasets, accessed via GBIF.org, using only records published under CC0 or CC BY 4.0, 2019–2024, within 25 km of each place. Monthly shares are our own calculation and are not endorsed by the data publishers. Bird photos: iNaturalist contributors under CC BY or CC0, credited on each card.