In the middle of a northern Virginia winter, having a beautiful outdoor deck can be frustrating. The cold may keep you inside, but there are plenty of ways to get the most out of your custom built deck in winter.
Northern Virginia in winter offers excellent bird-watching opportunities. With the right environment, you can transform your deck into a perfect winter wonderland for the variety of birds that call Virginia home in the winter months. Backyard bird feeders can be a life saver for small birds when the food sources are scarce in the winter. Even more important for attracting birds than a feeder is a water source. So make sure you have an unfrozen source for clean water on your deck and the birds will come from miles around. Winter gardens can provide both food and cover for birds like the Winter Wren, who eat the ample supply of bugs found there. Small birds, like the Brown Creeper, whose diet is primarily insects found in the bark of trees, will eat seeds from a feeder when bugs are in short supply. Some might hesitate at the thought of attracting birds that could make a mess on their deck, but with a Trex composite deck, any clean up is a finch, er, cinch!
Naturally, all the small birds enjoying the water and seeds you place out on your deck, attract larger birds of prey such as the Cooper’s Hawk. Keep an eye out for these larger blue-gray to reddish hawk’s with red eyes. Some consider it to be one of the greatest fliers on earth!
If you find yourself particularly inspired by watching all of these birds from your backyard deck in Virginia, you may be interested in the Great Backyard Bird Count, which begins on February 14th this year. The GBBC is a nationwide four-day citizen science project where volunteers record the birds they see. It is a huge undertaking and scientists appreciate the help in documenting the distribution and movements of birds all over the United States.