Which Foods Attract Which Birds?
During late winter and early spring, when natural seed sources are scarce, give some TLC to the birds. Tom Warren, our Almanac birder, lists some favorite foods of winter birds across North America.
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Best Winter Bird Foods
Favorite winter bird foods include:
- Sunflower
- Niger (Thistle)
- Cracked Corn
- Nuts & Fruit
See our chart on more wild bird food preferences.
“The little grain of wheat, tritucum, is the noblest food of man. The lesser grains of grasses are the food of passerine birds at present. Their diet is like man’s”.
–Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Suet
Suet can be purchased inexpensively in the meat department at your local grocery store. Suet can be placed in containers purpose-built for bird feeding (they most often resemble a little cage). Almost all birds will eat suet, especially in cold weather. Most often you will see the Downy, Hairy, Red-bellied, and Pileated Woodpeckers as well as chickadees, nuthatches, and titmice. See how to make suet.
Cracked Corn
A number of birds are ground feeders and will eat corn scattered on the ground; cardinals, sparrows, juncos, turkeys, and other birds will appear daily.
Nuts
An expensive but special treat, nuts provide much-needed protein, fats, and vitamins. Unshelled peanuts will be attractive to blue jays and woodpeckers, and will also provide entertainment as you watch smaller birds like chickadees and titmice attempt to reach the nutmeats inside the shell. Peanuts are a favorite of blackbirds, chickadees, jays, and sparrows. Peanut hearts are especially attractive.
Niger (Thistle seed)
Niger, commonly called thistle seed, is a very popular seed for finches including redpolls, Pine Siskins, Goldfinches and Purple Finches.
Fruit
Apples, crabapples, pears, and oranges are popular foods for jays, waxwings, woodpeckers, Ruffed Grouse and pheasants.
Sunflower
Small black oil seeds are best. Hulled sunflower seeds are attractive to birds, though costly. Popular with many birds, but especially finches.
At garden stores, pet shops, and numerous other stores, you can purchase seed mixes in bags from 10 to 50 pounds. Seeds will typically include sunflower, corn, millet, buckwheat, and other grains.
You can also make your own birdfood. See homemade bird food recipes.
Red-bellied woodpecker at a suet feeder.
Caution: Spoiled Bird Seed
Spoiled seed can be contaminated with mold, feces, fungus, and other chemicals. Mold and fungus can lead to bird diseases.
Old bird seed loses its nutritional value and should be discarded. Seed that is wet and lumpy should be removed from feeders. Maintain a seed inventory for only a few weeks and use large metal trash cans with tight covers to store seed.
Bird Feeding Locations
During periods of severe winter storms, snow and freezing rain, clearing an area on the ground near cover of bushes or forest can be life-saving for many species.
Feeders can be placed on poles, hung by wires from tree limbs, or placed on gutters so that they are just feet from windows, preferably in south-facing locations.
See more about choosing the right birdfeeder.
Fill your feeders before impending storms and then watch the feeding party that follows! What food do you put out for birds in the winter?
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As the de facto representative of cardinals, blue jays, finches, bluebirds, chickadees, mourning doves, and many more within a mile radius of my homestead, I maintain 9 feeders, including suet, varieties of seed, fruit, nuts, and meal worms. But the overwhelming favorite of my cardinals is safflower seed.
Here in the lakes region of New Hampshire we have fed the birds year round until last summer. Our area has too many bear that are being habituated to bird feeders and garbage bags left out. We used to put the feeders out only from about 8:00am to dusk from April 1 to December 1, otherwise out all the time while they hibernate. Not so this year, as they came out early and became quite brazen and roamed all times of day without any regard for humans. I will be making and installing a 3" diameter thick wall pipe concreted in the ground 4' deep, with feeders above their reach. if the squirrels and doves, and etc. don't eat what falls to the ground enough I will add a system to catch it all. There are two commercial versions we have seen on the market for this but are very expensive to buy so I'll make my own.
My husband and I love watching the birds and it keeps us busy trying to prevent squirrels eating all the bird seed. We have several feeders on our deck plus suet blocks, and we enjoy watching cardinals, woodpeckers, blue jays, sparrows, mourning doves, chickadees, juncos, and sometimes other birds we haven't identified! We have lots of house wrens and robins in the spring, and starlings!
I have been buying the roasted unsalted peanuts from Costco for several years from my blue jays and squirrels.there is one bird food I found that has a combination of split and pieces of peanuts but they are both raw and roasted together is it safe for the birds to eat raw peanuts?
I just love to feed my feathered friends, and had a ton of feeders on my porch and outside my windows. Unfortunately, the birds are so messy when they eat, and while some of the dropped food is eaten by ground feeders, the mice also found heaven on earth! They were just fat and happy and living under my house, so I had to move my feeders. They feed at night, so you won't know you have a problem until you start finding stashes of birdseed in the strangest places!! So just a warning...
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