Birds can be as finicky as people about what they eat. So the varieties of birds you attract to your yard will be determined primarily by the kind of seed you offer.
“Watch a feeder filled with a seed mix and you’ll see the birds methodically drop or kick out most of the seeds to get to their favorite — sunflower,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says in a bird-feeding fact sheet. “Birds will also kick out artificial ‘berry’ pellets, processed seed flavored and colored to look like ‘real’ fruit.”
The most effective way to attract a large variety of birds is to put out separate feeders for each food, the agency says. Here is a Fish and Wildlife Service guide matching birds with their favorite foods:
Cracked corn: ducks, geese, quail, mourning doves
Nyjer: finches, pine siskins, chickadees, dark-eyed juncos, redpolls, doves and sparrows
Nectar: hummingbirds, cardinals, thrushes, orioles, tanagers, finches
Fruit: orioles, mockingbirds, cedar waxwings, tanagers, bluebirds, jays, cardinals, thrushes
Peanuts: woodpeckers, chickadees and titmice
Millet: doves, blackbirds, sparrows, juncos, towhees
If you want to feed only doves, cardinals and white-throated sparrows, then switch from black oil sunflower to safflower seed, the agency says.
Associated Press
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