Wisconsin Fat Bird Week is back for another helping! Let’s celebrate our chunky native birds and learn one of the best ways to help them: by feeding them. And we’re not talking about refilling your bird feeders, we’re talking about nature’s surprisingly fattening salad bar: plants that are native to Wisconsin.
What is Wisconsin Fat Bird Week?
Fat Bird Week is a celebration of our state’s “chonkiest” native birds. This year, every day from May 8th through May 15th vote for your favorite bulbous bird and decide who will waddle home with the crown. Throughout the week, we share tips about how to help Wisconsin’s birds stay fat and healthy.
But enough chirping…let’s find out what we can plant at home to help get Wisconsin’s birds in the best shape to compete. Then, we’ll meet this year’s contestants and learn about their favorite meals!
Chestnut-sided warbler eating a worm in a tree. Photo by Steve Antonius
Fattening up our birds
In birds, fat is a good thing and the more, the better. Simply put, fat is energy and the fuel birds need to survive, especially during migration.
For Wisconsin’s birds, especially the “bulk” of them which migrate, fat is important fuel. Carbs and protein just don’t measure up – fat contains twice as much energy, plus it’s lighter. That’s a must, considering some birds can pack on 50-100% of their body weight to prepare for their long migrations. Sometimes this fat is a bit difficult to see because it is hidden under feathers, and fluffed-up birds during winter are often just staying warm.
Regardless, if you love a nice round well-fed bird, you might be interested in a concept called “birdscaping.” To birdscape is to adjust your landscaping to benefit the birds! Whether you live on a farm, in a forest, on a cul-de-sac, or in a high-rise apartment, there are ways to incorporate birdscaping into your life.
Planting native plants in your garden (or on your balcony!)
So how can we help support the high-fat diets of our feathered friends? By planting native plants in our gardens! “Our yards, porches and balconies can all help provide habitat,” says Lisa Gaumnitz, who coordinates the SOS Save Our Songbirds campaign. SOS Save Our Songbirds encourages Wisconsinites to take action at home to reduce window threats, purchase bird-friendly coffee, and plant native species.
A backyard pollinator garden. Photo by Paul Skawinski
Native plants provide far more insects, seeds, and berries for birds than nonnative trees, shrubs, and flowers that are often found in our yards. With 96% of North America’s land-based birds feeding insects to their young, we need all the native plants we can get to provide more insects, aka more food, for birds!
So what do birds gaze at as ravenously as humans gaze at potato chips, fried chicken, and chocolate cake? Here’s a list of six native plants to get you started, provided by SOS Save Our Songbirds:
- Pussy Willow
- White Spruce Tree
- Ox Eye Sunflower
- Spotted Jewelweed
- Serviceberry
- Rough Blazing Star & Prairie Blazing Star
Non-native plants can create an ecological desert because they do not provide as much nutrition for birds. Native plants provide a buffet for Wisconsin’s birds. You can start by incorporating a few native plants into your existing garden, and go from there.
Only have a porch or balcony? You can still help birds by choosing native plants for your window boxes or planters, or even creating a porch prairie.
If you want your yard or balcony to make your neighborhood birds a bit plumper, now you know what to do.
Backyard pollinator garden. Photo by Adam Gould
Design your bird-friendly garden with Mariette Nowak
Need a little more help getting started? Watch our 5 Steps to Planting a Pollinator Garden in Wisconsin video – many native plants help both birds and insects. You can also visit SOS Save Our Songbird’s website to learn more about what native plants to grow and why, where to purchase native plants, and other ways to help protect Wisconsin’s native birds.
Interested in diving deeper into designing your garden to support migratory birds? Check out “Birdscaping for Wisconsin and the Great Lakes Region: The 50 Best Native Plants to Attract Birds to Your Midwestern Garden” by Mariette Nowak. You can also expand your gardening skills with Nowak’s 14-page booklet “Beyond the Birdfeeder: Creating a Bird-Friendly Yard with Native Wisconsin Plants,” published in partnership with SOS Save Our Songbirds and NRF. Mariette is a gardener, an educator, and has been an NRF member for over 20 years.
Your migratory bird habitat will offer a beautiful progression of flowers and fruits through the seasons. Best of all, you’ll be doing your part to ensure that migratory flocks of birds […] continue to wing their way across the continent each spring and fall.
2026 Fat Bird Week Contestants and their favorite snacks:
Massive meadowlark
An eastern meadowlark on a stump, mid-chirp. Photo by Stephanie Nixon
The massive eastern meadowlark isn’t picky when it comes to insects! Taking up a “massive” part of their diet, they eat grasshoppers, crickets, beetles (and their larvae), caterpillars, ants, and true bugs. During the fall and winter months, they’ll also snack on seeds and waste grain.
Tubby Tree Swallow
A tree swallow perched on a thin branch. Photo by Robert Haase
The tubby tree swallow treats itself to lots of crunchy insects like dragonflies, wasps, and beetles. They also enjoy snacking on spiders. During the breeding season, they crave more calcium-dense foods like fish bones, crayfish exoskeletons, and eggshells from gulls or loons. Delicious…
Ginormous goldfinch
American goldfinch perched on a thin branch. Photo by Courtney Celley/USFWS
The ginormous American goldfinch is a huge fan of seeds! This forager looks for snacks in weeds, shrubs, and trees and will even balance on the lavender blossoms of native prairie thistles to reach the seeds inside. They also like to snack on buds, small pieces of bark, and maple sap. Try putting small seeds in your bird feeder to attract these chonkers.
Here are Mariette Nowak’s top 10 plants for goldfinches and other prairie birds:
- Native thistle
- Purple coneflower
- Sunflower
- Switchgrass
- Yellow coneflower
- Silphiums
- Goldenrod
- Indian grass
- Prairie dropseed
- American aster
Curious why this chunky goldfinch isn’t looking as colorful? Learn why here.
Bluebird couple who let themselves go
A male and female bluebird couple perched on thin tree branches. Photo by Robert Haase
This couple knows how to eat! Eastern bluebirds feast on two things: insects in the summer and fruit, especially berries, in the winter. So, what’s on the menu in terms of insects? Grasshoppers, crickets, katydids, and beetles…mmmm, crunchy! For fruit, bluebirds love cherries, sumac, serviceberries, crabapples, and viburnums, just to name a few.
Jiggly Junco
A dark-eyed junco perched on a thin branch in the snow. Photo by Eric Preston
The jiggly dark-eyed junco prefers to dine on insects, which takes up 50% of an adult’s summer diet. They particularly enjoy indulging on caterpillars, beetles, and grasshoppers. During the winter months, they feed more on seeds and can often be found on the ground underneath bird feeders. They’ll balance out their diet with the occasional berry, as well.
Chungus cardinal
A northern cardinal perched on a tree branch. Photo by Eric Preston
There’s a chungus among us! The northern cardinal has a varied diet of seeds, insects, and berries. A large portion of their diet is vegetable matter, such as seeds of weeds and grasses, flowers, and many types of berries and fruits. For a little extra protein, they enjoy beetles, grasshoppers, centipedes, and other types of delicious insects. Their favorite deliciously fattening treats at bird feeders are sunflower seeds.
Wood duck with a dad bod
A wood duck wading in the water. Photo by Steven W Lepak
This wood duck with a dad bod does not mess around when it comes to eating seeds, particularly from aquatic plants or that have fallen from trees and shrubs. They also have a taste for insects and crustaceans – no beer koozie required!
Whoppin’ wigeon
An American wigeon in the water. Photo by Warren Lynn
This whopper loves to stuff face with plants! The American wigeon eats all parts of aquatic plants like cattail, duckweed, wigeon grass, and more. When venturing on land, they’ll also eat grass, wheat, barley, and other terrestrial plants. Wigeons bulk up on insects and aquatic invertebrates like horseflies, beetles, and crustaceans.
Don’t forget to vote for your favorites from May 8 to 15 during this year’s Fat Bird Week!
Join the Great Wisconsin Birdathon
Of course, birds need more than just food. Every year, the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin hosts the Great Wisconsin Birdathon, the largest fundraiser for bird conservation in the state. During the Birdathon, bird enthusiasts from across the state form teams with the goal of finding as many bird species as possible while raising important funds for bird conservation. Since its inception in 2012, the Birdathon has raised over $1 million for bird protection in Wisconsin.
The funds are collected and managed by NRF through the Bird Protection Fund. Projects supported by the Bird Protection Fund include conservation of Wisconsin’s most threatened and endangered bird species; creation and protection of crucial breeding, stopover, and overwintering habitat; research and monitoring; and education and outreach. Check out the projects supported by birders in 2025.
In 2025, more than 600 birders participated statewide. Interested in joining the flock this year? Birdathon teams can participate any day from April 15th to June 15th and all skill levels are welcome to join!
2024 Birdathon team Grousewell representing Groundswell Conservancy, at Patrick Marsh. Photo by Roberta Herschleb
40 years of protecting birds
For 40 years, the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin has been supporting projects that protect Wisconsin’s native birds. To date, we’ve put $1.8 million towards bird conservation.
2026 marks the Foundation’s 40th anniversary, and we invite you to celebrate with us all year long! Explore upcoming events, our interactive StoryMap highlighting the history of the Foundation, and more.
Written by Emma Schatz, digital communications coordinator