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Home → Gardening → Attracting Butterflies

Where Do Birds Go During

a Storm?

David Mizejewski
Updated: Dec. 17, 2021

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Where do birds go when it storms?

From blizzards to heat waves we'll
show you how to protect birds, bats
and butterflies by turning your yard
into shelter.

Where Do Birds Go When It

Storms?
“What happens to birds during heavy storms?
Do they know bad weather is approaching?”
asks Lori Reiser of St. Augustine, Florida.

Just like people, animals seek shelter during

extreme weather. It doesn’t matter if you’re
dealing with a blizzard, lightning storm or
heat wave—wild creatures need places to
go. Birds recognize changes in air pressure,
which are often signs that weather is about to
change, according to birding experts Kenn
and Kimberly Kaufman. If they sense an
approaching storm, they tend to forage more,
often coming to feeders for the easiest
source of food. When bad weather hits, birds
generally seek shelter from wind and rain in
dense shrubs or thickets, next to heavy tree
trunks, and on the downwind side of woods
and forests. Cavity-nesting birds hunker
down in nest boxes and natural cavities to
ride out storms.

Providing this important component of habitat

is a lot easier than you might think. Take a
look at some of the ways you can help birds
when it storms in your own backyard.

Cardinals seek cover in evergreen trees

COURTESY RONALD WASHINGTON

Cardinals seek cover in evergreen trees

Start With Plants for

Protection for Birds in Storms
The same native plants that provide food for
wildlife in the form of berries, seeds, nuts and
nectar will do double duty and provide shelter
if you plant them densely. Evergreens are
particularly valuable, since their foliage
remains green year-round. Here’s a good
rule of thumb: The more plants you have and
the more densely you plant them, the more
protection you’ll be providing for wildlife.

Group Shrubs Together

Imagine a bare expanse of lawn dotted with a
few isolated shrubs—a typical landscape in
lots of places. Not much shelter for wildlife,
right? Now imagine those shrubs connected
by patches of wildflowers, or even more
shrubs, forming a living fence that birds and
animals can use as a safe hiding place or
corridor through the otherwise open
landscape.

Check out the top 10 summer flowering

shrubs for full sun.

STEVE AND DAVE MASLOWSKI

Blue jay

Leave Dead Trees Standing

for Cavity Nesters
Sometimes providing shelter means simply
protecting or enhancing mature plantings that
are already there. If you have large trees in
your yard, don’t remove them. Even better,
add smaller understory trees and shrubs to
take advantage of vertical space, creating
layers of shelter. Dead and dying trees,
called snags, are particularly important. As
snags decay, they lose branches and cavities
form. Add that to the holes woodpeckers
excavate, and you could have all sorts of
animals taking up residence.

What happens to birds in a hurricane?

Make a Brush Pile for Wildlife

Beyond your plantings, you can also
assemble simple structures that wildlife will
use for refuge. Brush piles mimic fallen
woody debris found in natural areas; build
them by lining up a series of parallel logs,
then layering successively smaller branches
on top. This will give you a domelike structure
filled with spaces that wildlife as large as
foxes and as small as mourning cloak
butterflies will take advantage of.

Check out 5 ways to create a bird-safe

backyard.

Pile Up Rocks
You can do the same thing with rocks by
stacking smaller stones on and around bigger
ones to create mini-caves and crevices. Try
doing this along your property line to make a
rock wall. Just be sure to stack the rocks
without using mortar, which would eliminate
those valuable hiding places.

Here’s how to create winter shelter for birds.

bluebird nest box

COURTESY STEVE BAINBRIDGE

Bluebird on nest box

Put Up a Roosting Box for

Shelter from Storms
You can also buy or build special roosting
boxes designed to provide instant shelter.
These look like nesting boxes or birdhouses
for birds, but they have entry holes toward
the bottom to help the box retain heat in
winter. They might even have perches on the
inside to accommodate multiple animals.
Some critter or another will use a roosting
box in all seasons, including flying squirrels,
tree frogs and songbirds like bluebirds,
chickadees and titmice.

Learn how to keep house sparrows out of

bluebird boxes.

Give Shelter to Bats

A bat house is really just another kind of
roosting box. Built and mounted properly, it
will entice the little flying mammals to take up
residence in your yard. Remember, you have
nothing to fear from bats. And they’ll help
control insect pests!

Next, learn where butterflies go when it rains.

Originally Published: July 01, 2021

David Mizejewski

David Mizejewski is a naturalist with the National

Wildlife Federation, as well as a nationally
recognized media personality and speaker. He is
the author of the book Attracting Birds, Butterflies,
and Other Backyard Wildlife.

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