We had a very rare snowstorm here which left the ground covered in 8" of snow and trees covered in snow and ice. It'll likely all melt away in the coming days as we have sunny days and temps rise above freezing.

I noticed some birds poking around the snow on my back deck, so I cut up some raw untoasted walnuts and almonds into small pieces and and scattered them out on the deck and have seen a number of small birds stopping by to feed.

I travel away from home a lot and can't reliably keep a bird feeder stocked, so I'm wondering if this temporary food source is helpful or harmful to the birds since I'm not going to keep it up after the snow melts.

My concern about harm is about causing them to change their behavior and training them to keep looking for food on my deck after I stop feeding them in a few days. I'm assuming that the raw nuts I'm feeding them won't cause any harm even if it's not a well balanced diet, but I don't really have anything more suitable.

I don't know what type of birds they are, they are around 3" high, typical Pacific Northwest birds, I guess.