Feed your birds nutritious and delicious food choices that meet all their dietary requirements! From treats that provide essential minerals and vitamins, to treats with essential anti-aging properties.
Fruit provides wild birds with natural energy sources that they rely on for sustenance, making windfall or bruised fruit from backyard trees an especially tasty treat. You might also come across old berries, raisins, grapes and bananas.
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Fruit
Wild birds require a varied diet to remain healthy. Offering fruits, vegetables and pasta from your kitchen as treats for their feeders is one way to provide your feathered friends with nourishment that won’t just come from bird seed alone.
Fruit is a favorite treat of birds of all types, from hummingbirds and bluebirds to woodpeckers and robins. Oranges, apples and grapes are particularly sought-after by backyard bird populations.
Nuts
Wild birds love nuts, which provide energy-packed nutrition for foraging and nesting activities. Nuts can also be stored away as natural winter food sources in tree cavities, niches in bark or small ground hollows for easy storage.
Peanuts are among the most beloved nuts to offer wild birds as food sources; however, other nuts such as pecans, almonds, Brazil nuts and hazelnuts may also prove attractive options for backyard bird feeding.
Seeds
Wild birds require nutritious sources of sustenance in order to survive, and by offering various kinds of bird food in your yard you may attract different kinds of species.
Seed is an essential food source for birds during the cold months when extra energy is necessary to stay warm. For optimal survival in such temperatures, look for bird seed that contains fats and proteins to give birds what they need to withstand winter’s chill.
Seeds can be combined with food items like peanut butter to create special treats for your favorite birds. Fresh fruit provides energy boosters during winter.
Cereals
Cheerios are an ideal treat for wild birds, as they contain low levels of fat and sodium while providing essential vitamins and minerals they need to remain healthy. But as with all treats given to wild birds, Cheerios should only ever be fed occasionally as part of a balanced diet.
Fruit can make an attractive treat for birds of many species. Try offering apples, pears and peaches without seeds or pits as a treat.
Grated mild cheese is another high fat food source that’s extremely popular with robins, wrens and dunnocks. Stale bread, cakes and cookies also serve to attract wild birds when crumbled into small pieces and soaked before placing outside.
Breads
If you want to attract birds into your backyard, it is essential that they receive a balanced and nutritional diet. Bread offers no benefit whatsoever to wild birds and could actually harm their wellbeing!
Stale bread crusts, donuts, cake and cookies may attract birds; to avoid this situation, break them into small pieces before placing it outside. Soak any stale bread with water before doing so.
Pet Food
Birds enjoy eating a wide range of pet food, especially dry dog and cat kibble. However, for their own safety it is wise to first soak it before offering to birds as its hard lumps could potentially suffocate them.
Seeds are the main food source for most backyard birds. Black-oil sunflower seeds, peanuts, cracked corn and mealworms all make excellent options.
Provide an assortment of seed types and sizes, then choose feeders which correspond with their feeding habits in your backyard, to attract wild birds.
Other Foods
Wild birds take advantage of kitchen scraps and pantry grains stored in your pantry as a nutritious supplement to natural food sources during times of limited sustenance.
Grain: Birds often enjoy feeding on dry whole grains like corn, wheat and rice which can be crushed into smaller pieces to be more easily consumed by their digestive systems. Grains also offer birds an important source of protein. Visiting feeders provides plenty of opportunities for this!
Fruit is another food source beloved by birds, particularly bruised apples and bananas. Simply cut away its bruised areas, attach to a feeder, fill with sugar water for hummingbirds or seed mix for other species of birds, and enjoy bird feasting!
