What Do You Feed Birds?

 

Above: Long-tailed tits (Aegithalos caudatus) feeding on suet balls (image courtesy of Paul Brentnall at FreeDigitalPhoto.net)

In this post you will learn how to attract different species of birds to your garden.

Birds eat allsorts; bread, seeds, peanuts, suet and meal worm.  But each bird species has its own food preference.  By providing a variety of different foods, as detailed below, you can attract a good diversity of birds to your garden.

So let’s begin.

Bread is perhaps the easiest and cheapest food to distribute.  In urban areas you are likely to attract crows, magpies and feral pigeons, whilst in more rural settings, bread will also additionally attract wood pigeons.  However, bread is of low nutritional value (lacking the fat and proteins birds need), and so should not constitute a large or sole part of their diet.  Also, make sure ideally that the bread is not too stale (and, therefore, hard), so that it will not choke birds, particularly hatchlings in the breeding season (although, incidentally, I have known magpies to soften stale pieces of bread in our bird bath, before eating it).

Above: Wood pigeon swallowing large chunk of bread, on a garden lawn

It is more ideal to provide birds with seed mixtures.  Good mixtures contain maize, peanut granules and sunflower seeds.  These mixtures will attract a variety of birds including blackbirds, house sparrows, dunnocks and finches. Black sunflower seeds are popular all year round, particularly with tits and greenfinches.  Although these types of seeds can be spread on the ground, you will have more success of attracting birds through distributing these foods via a bird table or hanging feeder.

Nyjer seeds will attract goldfinches to your garden, one of the most colourful British species.  You will need a special type of feeder, however, for distributing these small, black, oily seeds.

Above: a goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) feeding on Nyjer seeds

Peanuts are also very popular, particularly with greenfinches, tits, and if you're lucky a visiting nuthatch or greater spotted woodpecker.  However, unfortunately not any peanut will do — peanuts can be high in a particular natural toxin which can be lethal to birds, so make sure you buy them from a trusted dealer, such as the RSPB.  Unfortunately left over dry roasted peanuts will not do!

Suet balls and bird cakes are very popular in the winter, due to their high fat content.  They are favourite foods of tits.  However, make sure that you remove the mesh bags they are sold in, which can injure birds, before placing the food on a special feeder.

Meal worm is particularly sought-after by robins, and other insect eating birds, but will also be popular with seed-eating birds during the breeding season, as the emerging chicks will be needing the extra nutrition.  This food type can be distributed on the lawn, on the bird table or in a specialised feeder.

Above: A British robin feeding on a fresh worm it has plucked from the lawn

Do NOT give these to birds: milk (which can result in death), cooking fat and vegetable oils (not good for bird health or feathers), mouldy foods (which can cause respiratory infections).

In the series:

Introduction
How do you feed birds?
What do birds drink?

RSPB advice

If you have already created a ‘bird garden’, you may have some useful tips of your own. Please share them through a comment.