How to give wildlife fresh, unfrozen water in winter

I enjoy looking after the birds out back, where I feed the house sparrows and any other bird that comes by in winter. It’s good to have a garden that produces food for birds, but water is just as important as food in the winter. My pond is what makes my backyard home to so many creatures besides myself. But I also put the pond to bed when winter comes.

With the onset of truly cold weather, with snow on the ground that sticks around, water is pretty much everywhere — in solid or powdered form. Birds don’t do as well as dogs and humans at eating snow for water, so that makes it hard for our furry and feathered friends to get enough to drink. In fact, in winter, birds can suffer even more from lack of water than from lack of food.

Don’t feel guilty if this might not have occurred to you already. Even after creating a proper backyard habitat, it still took me years to provide them this basic need in winter.

(For those few lucky enough to have a solarium, their roofs are great for melting snow, giving you a real view of the birds that drink from it.)

I used to put out a dish outside the patio door (see image above). I cleaned and refilled it when needed. If you use this method, I should warn you: terracotta is ruined by freezing – the dish will crack and flake.

Then one day, I had the brilliant idea of how to make a heated water source with things I had on hand, in under 5 minutes (once all objects were located). And when you get to the bottom of this post, you’ll know why this is very timely, indeed! 

DIY Heated Watering Bowl instructions

All it requires is described below:

• An exterior extension cord reaching from the outdoor outlet to the location you want the bowl
• a light socket cord, such as for a regular utility lamp, or from a broken lamp (like this one from IKEA, with a chandelier-sized socket). You can DIY wire one from a plug, a cord, and a socket from the hardware store.
• a 25-W lightbulb, such as one left over from a chandelier, an aquarium, or an appliance.
• a pickle jar (750 mL – 1 L in size) -OR- (a superior alternative) enough sand to fill ⅓ to ½ of the can. Both of these shield the bulb and redistribute the heat.
• An empty 1-gallon paint can, or a restaurant-sized can that once contained ketchup, tomato sauce, or canned vegetables. The size of this can usually falls short of 3L – I don’t know how many ounces, but the contents will transfer to 3 or 4 quart-sized Mason jars.
• A dog’s bowl
• A rock

The basic principle is this: Incandescent lightbulbs shed enough heat to melt ice and snow. But we don’t want to really heat the water or waste excess electricity, so use the lowest wattage required – this bulb is going to be illuminated 24/7. A 25 W chandelier bulb works nicely up to -15ºC; if it has a standard base it’ll probably handle colder.

Put the lightbulb in the jar (or in the sand, in the can). The sand or the jar helps distribute the heat and shield the bulb and the cord.

If you’re putting sand in the can, then of course you leave the can right side up! Nestle the lightbulb slightly into the sand, and drape the cord over the lip of the can.

If your bowl fits nicely over an open-topped can, you could put the can right-side-up and put the lightbulb jar right in. Just take care to never tip water into the jar. It will break the bulb.

Put the dog bowl on top of the can.

Weight it down with a rock (to keep the bowl sturdy for perching animals), and…the last step is sooo exciting…

JUST ADD WATER.

TA-DAAAA!  The ever-ready bird/squirrel/feral-cat heated watering bowl!

When the water gets low, replenish it with fresh water from the tap. Please note: Do NOT put any agents into the water to keep it from freezing. By “agents” I mean sugar, salt, or anything else.

If your lightbulb isn’t keeping the water in a liquid state, chances are you’ll have to increase the wattage to put out more heat. 40 W will likely do when the weather’s a chilly -30 ºC.  50 W, if you’re in the Far North, or Rogers Pass, Montana.

On winter days when the temperature goes back up to 0º, you can turn the lightbulb off, because it’s gonna evaporate the water otherwise (wasted electricity).

Wash the bowl and the rock once a week – a proper dishwashing, in the dishwasher.

Why is this post timely?

Winter is bird feeding season! Project FeederWatch began in mid-November, the Christmas Bird Count happens all over the world at this time (including in your area!), and the Great Backyard Bird Count is coming up in February. These three events are citizen-science projects that been going on in North America for ages (almost a century for the CBC, in fact), but in 2013, the GBBC went full-fledged (pun) global!

Birders everywhere in the world have been contributing to this citizen-science initiative ever since. How? Counting birds, and reporting data on eBird and on the projects’ associated websites (see Bird Studies Canada for more detail). This helps scientists know where the birds are, where they go, where they pass through on the way, and when. This data can then be used to protect and conserve bird habitat. To us (and them), that means forests, meadows, marshes, and shorelines.

For both the Project FeederWatch season and the GBBC weekend, all you have to do is watch your feeders and backyard for 15 minutes a day, and record your observations.

I hope some Common Redpolls visit this year, or at least a White-throated Sparrow, as one stayed at my feeder for a week a couple of winters ago.

And if you put out your spiffy home-made heating watering bowl out now, you’re giving the local birds an opportunity to discover it in time to see more of them over the winter.

A handy reference to help you identify the birds you see is here, at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Happy backyard birding!