The BBC had a piece on how to help birds which I have linked. Although they mention house sparrows which are declining in England perhaps anyone interested to follow the link to some of the English sites. The United Kingdom seems to be ahead of this country in trying to protect their bird population.

Here is a link that might be useful: how to help city birds

I've heard Aronia (chokeberry) mentioned as good winter food. I have Aronia arbutifolia 'Brilliantissima' and it does seem that the berries don't taste good enough that the birds go after them right away. Last year by spring the berries were mostly gone, so I think something was making use of them.

Lori

Sorry. I didn't take the part about container gardening, and Red chokeberry would be too large. Aronia melanocarpa (Black chokeberry) might be small enough, but I'm not sure if it would ok growing in a container.

Leave some of the foliage trash until late in the winter. The birds like to sun themselves on top of dried stems and late in the winter the birds with start scratching under the edge of the pile for early bugs. Don't worry about attracting bugs with these piles the bugs are already there but just congregate where it is warm an moist.

If you know anyone in your row that decorates for the holidays with foliage ask them if they would bring their leftovers to your place for the birds. Depending on the area these holiday decorations can have holly, juniper and other berries the birds like only after a freeze.

Potted evergreens and hollies are great bird magnets. They make berries and cones for birds to eat, they make great hiding spots from predators and they make great nesting spots for birds and they help protect from cold winds. A small Splashing fountain is good too. They love the sound of water. You can provide raisins, dried cherries, and grapes for fruit eaters and peanuts for jays and woodpeckers. Suet is always good. A good mixed birdseed with sunflower seeds, safflower seeds, peanuts and sunflower chips and dried fruit. Try to avoid mixed seed with millet and Milo because they do tend to draw house sparrows and cowbirds. Unless of course you like those. Peanut butter is a good thing for attracting Carolina wrens and nuthatches and some wood peckers. Hope this helps you some. Good luck.

Sorry i didn't mention this either. Please do leave leaf litter because a lot of birds do love digging in it and scratching up bugs. Bugs are a number one food source for a lot of birds. Even seed eating birds all feed their young, bugs. Of course these are outside bugs not the type that get in your house :-) Maifleur is right, Bugs are great for birds! LOl...Brown thrashers and robins love digging in leaves and wrens love hunting under every possible leaf still hanging on. Many, many, other birds enjoy them too.
Bonnie

If you get a cut Christmas Tree, leave it out in the yard when you are done with it. You can even ask your neighbors for theirs. Bind them together loosly,like a TeePee. Find large pinecones, fill them with peanut butter then roll them in a good birdseed. If you have enough cones hanging on the tree the neighbors will see what you are doing and not think you are being lazy or trashey, great food, great shelter and best of all it's free!

I'm sorry for not getting back to this sooner, but have been reading responses, while I continued to undo and redo my garden. (Undo = trashing diseased plants, cleaning and bringing in the terra-cotta and decor, gathering the last of the tomatoes for eiither pickling or letting them grow red in cardboard boxes, protecting borderline periennials, cooking and then tossing cream of celery soup - parcel is a bit overpowering - yuck, gathering some plants for composting, etc. Redo = bringing in the herbs and tropical succulents for my attempt at overwintering them, plus bringing in the lettuce and broccoli onto the unheated front porch.) Still not completely done, but the freezing temps have arrived, so not as big a hurry now.

It was just too late in the season to plant new shrubs and/or trees, and, with a 16 foot squared yard, even one small tree means, at best, half the yard would be filled with it, considering trees or bushes generally grow as wide as they do tall. It's hard enough to figure out how to fit just the minimum of what I want to grow - considering we both like flowers, herbs, and vegetables from our garden. (The pumpkins were happy accidents, never to be done again -- I hope. LOL)

Also, I'm not keeping birds alive to watch a wide variety of them eat my offerings. I can't even see outback from our too high window and I'm in Philly. Our bird population consist of sparrows, starlings, pigeons, and on a rare occasion, robins. I did meet a man, who used to live down the street, who actually had hummingbirds come to his yard (thus the references to several plants hmmingbirds would love), but haven't seen any myelf. My hubby worked at a base with lots of warehousing half a mile from here, and discovered a peregrin falcon was feasting on the pigeons in pme pf the wharehouses, but those birds require accommadations I simply cannot supply (unless I work towards attracting pigeons and rats. LOL) Since most of my life has been in the burbs or country, I do know most of the birds everyone mentione, they just aren't city dwellers. I haven't even seen a chickadee or wren here.

I've also only seen a couple of pinecones, including neightbors' Christmas decorations, in the 16 years I've lived here. You'd think a state named "Penn's forest" would plant some pine trees, or leave some around and plant around them, but if they did either, not many have lasted in this city.

I did check out the British site linked, which gave me some added ideas, if I run out of regular bird food (cereal with dried fruit in it -- my favorite, too), but kinda hard to figure out the differences in weather for them, since they're more like Seattle cold, not Philly cold. Since my other passion in life is teddy bears, I've come to know some from the UK, and saw pictures of them snowboarding last winter, and I know they brought out their marigolds before we did, so it gives a rough idea of the mild differences. My bears now want to make the birds some grapevine wreathes with dried fruit and millet for them.

Not sure how to leave vegetation around for bugs to congregate, since they are usually busy in the bottom of my compost bins (5-gallon plastic buckets and a large plastic trash can all with a bunch of holes in the lower sides and bottoms for easy access for the needed bugs), but will hope the vegetation still left out there will be kind enough to make those piles as they fall apart during the winter. I just hope most of it goes into the containers, so it doesn't end up clogging our drain during rain and snowstorms. (I also hope I don't see the amount of bugs I found last spring in one bin. Folks with bug phobias just shouldn't compost. LOL)

Have discovered they do not like sweet peppers or green tomatoes -- not even the squirrels went for them -- but am hoping for our Indian Summer, so a few maggots might pop out of what is left over, since I now know birds need bugs!

Thanks for all the ideas and links. I will be asking neighbors for pine boughs and trees after Christmas. Worse comes to worse, they should add some protection from severe storms in the worst of winter for my feathery friends.