Best suet feeder for birds1/20/2024 ![]() Suet Cakeīirds love a simple suet cake, especially chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, and bug-eating birds. Sunflower hearts and chips shouldn’t be offered in tube feeders where moisture can collect. Sunflower in the shell can be offered in a wide variety of feeders, including trays, tube feeders, hoppers, and acrylic window feeders. Some kinds of squirrel baffles, and some specialized feeders, are fairly good at excluding them. Sunflower is very attractive to squirrels, a problem for people who don’t wish to subsidize them. Without the protection of the shell, sunflower hearts and chips quickly spoil, and can harbor dangerous bacteria, so it’s important to offer no more than can be eaten in a day or two. ![]() Many birds love this, as of course do squirrels, and it’s expensive. People living in apartments or who have trouble raking up seed shells under their feeders often offer shelled sunflower. So if you’re inundated with species you’d rather not subsidize at your black oil sunflower, before you do anything else, try switching to striped sunflower. Striped sunflower seeds have a thicker shell, much harder for House Sparrows and blackbirds to crack open. The black oil seeds (“oilers”) have very thin shells, easy for virtually all seed-eating birds to crack open, and the kernels within have a high fat content, extremely valuable for most winter birds. When it comes to sunflower seeds, note that there are two kinds of sunflower-black oil and striped. In general, mixtures that contain red millet, oats, and other “fillers” are not attractive to most birds and can lead to a lot of waste as the birds sort through the mix.Ĭlick here for a larger PDF of the below Wild Bird Food Chart. Other varieties of seed can help attract different types of birds to round out your backyard visitors. The seed that attracts the widest variety of birds, and so the mainstay for most backyard bird feeders, is sunflower. Wild Bird Food Preferencesįor most wild birds, seeds are the best source of high energy food for wild birds. The bird feeder that you place in your backyard aides the survival of birds in harsh winters. What little food that is available can get buried under deep snow. Your reward is the opportunity to attract some feathered friends to your backyard and garden-and enjoy watching wild birds from your window! Do not feed birds if it significantly changes their behavior (for example, aggressive birds such as seagulls, endangered birds such as snow owls, etc.).Properly clean to avoid the spread of viruses and parasites. Owning a bird feeder is a responsibility. NEVER feed bread which not only provides little nutrition but also may cause an unhealthy condition referred to as “angel wing.” Feed safe, appropriate food for birds.Beyond the natural habitat, it’s important to:
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