Many if not most people stop feeding wild birds during the summer. Nature provides a wide variety of foods for them to eat and none go hungry during the warm months. What they don’t always have available but always need is water. Birds need water for both drinking and for bathing, and will travel to find it. Having a birdbath or other water source in your yard will not only keep the birds in the area hanging around your yard, it will attract other birds that are looking for a drink.

A feeder will attract some birds to the seed, but others will have no interest in it. You will always have cardinals, chickadees, finches and tufted titmice around a feeder, but you will never see a robin or a bluebird there. Like the robin, many birds do not eat seed, but exist on a diet of insects, worms and berries. They have no interest in seeds but they all need water, and a simple birdbath will be a magnet for them. A pedestal or one that sits on the ground will work equally well. Just remember to clean and refill it often to wash away mosquito larvae.