What To Buy From Bird Food Store | Types Of Bird Seeds
All of us love our chirpy backyard visitors! And if you are planning to buy wild bird feed for your feathery friends, you are at the right place. This information gives you awesome tips to choose the right feed. If you are a passionate bird lover, be a little thoughtful before feeding them. With plenty of options available in the market, it would be great to gain insight into the types of seeds.
Many of us are passionate about helping the birds around us. We want to get the best food, feeders, waterers, and birdbaths from pet supplies stores. Certain foods attract certain birds to your gardens and backyards again and again. Though you will know more about them as you keep feeding and watching them. But it is always good to be a little thoughtful while feeding them. This post will help you to know how to feed them and protect them.
Things Every Bird Lover Should Know Before Buying Wild Bird Feed
If you use the right feeding methods and bird food, these lovely visitors can derive more benefits. Millions of bird enthusiasts today are providing safe and healthy stations for birds. With these tips, you can attract finches, sunbirds, hummingbirds, parakeets, cardinals, thrushes, jay, and other birds.
- Be Versatile In Feeding
Try to offer different types of wild bird food or seeds in separate feeders. Different types of seeds will help you attract greater varieties of birds. You can also avoid wastage of seeds by keeping them in different feeders. For example, black oil sunflower seed appeals to most seed-eating of birds. Keep peanuts and sunflower seeds in separate wild bird feeders. If you are going for mix, select blends of millet, cracked corn, and sunflower seeds.
The second best is the mixture of nuts, dried fruits, and peanuts. This will attract birds like titmice and woodpeckers. Very few birds prefer oats, wheat, and milo. While jays prefer maize, siskin and finches prefer niger. Nectivores birds like sunbirds and hummingbirds love nectar. Perky-Pet Original Clear Instant Nectar is a great nectar concentrate for hummingbirds. You will surely find it in any reputed bird food store
- Bird Suets
Bird suets are ideal for insect-eating birdies like wrens, titmice, woodpeckers, chickadees, bluebirds, nuthatches, and cardinals. Adult birds may feed it to their babies during warmer months. But it is more important to feed suets in winter. As they may rot in hot weather. Moreover, suet is a high-calorie food and provides much-needed energy to the birds during cold weather.
You may replace bird suets with peanut butter during summer. Or simply mix peanut butter with cornmeal in 1:5. This mixture will help you attract warblers, woodpeckers, and other birds feeding on insects.
- Fruit-Based Feeds
Many birds love fruits instead of seeds. Some of them are waxwings, robins, bluebirds, thrushes, and woodpeckers. If you see visiting these birds, feed them with fruits like currants, oranges, blueberries, raspberries, and mulberries. Kaytee Nut & Fruit Blend is a great mix of grains, seeds, nuts, and fruit pieces. This will help attract fruit-loving birds like woodpeckers, chickadees, cardinals, and beautiful songbirds. If you are feeding fresh fruits, keep the feeders clean and fresh. Be sure about removing moldy fruits from the feeders. You will get essential bird accessories like cleaning brushes and waterers from any pet store.
- High-Quality Wild Bird Feed
If you are buying packaged bird food, you will come across a huge number of options. You will find varieties of seeds for the birds. Sunflower seed is the most popular choice as it attracts many birds. Their next favorites are cracked corn, safflower, and peanuts. Keep watching their food behaviors and you may change your feeding patterns accordingly.
As you visit a pet feed store, you will find a variety of foods for pet birds and wild birds. But be sure to learn what you are buying. Read the ingredients and the seeds used in the blends. Try to avoid blends that contain rice, oats, wheat, flax, and milo. Go for white millet instead of red millet. You will find varieties of woodpecker suet nuggets, Bluebird nuggets, and Apple Suet in the bird feed store. Kaytee Birders’ Blend is an excellent food for songbirds.
- Keep Bird Feeding Safe
Before you buy and offer bird feed, make sure to make it safe and convenient for the birdies. Many experts claim that bird feeding increases predatory activities. Hence hang the bird feeders where they are safe from predators. Place the feeders and waterers a little above eye level. Do not keep them near a place where cats and other predators can reach them. Also, try to keep the feeders away from the reach of squirrels. But make sure to use platform feeders for ground feeding birds like doves, roadrunners, quail, and sparrows. If your yard is spacious, use a shepherd’s hook to hang feeders. This will help you keep the feeders away from poles, windows, and walls.
Here we reiterate the types of seeds you can buy for different wild birds-
| Type Of Bird Food | Birds |
| Black Oil Sunflower Seeds | Most Of The Birds (Seed Eating) |
| Striped Sunflower Seeds | Cardinals, Chickadees, and Grosbeaks |
| Shelled & Cracked Corn | Ground Feeding Birds like quails, cardinals, doves, ducks, turkeys, ducks |
| Nyjer | Finches, doves, sparrows, quail, siskin |
| Safflower | Cardinals, Doves, Blue Jays |
| Peanuts | Woodpeckers, jays, titmice, chickadees, and other species |
| White Millet | Ground feeding birds like quails, native sparrows, juncos, cardinals, and doves |
| Berries | Thrashes, Waxwings, Bluebirds, Robin, Warblers & Woodpeckers |
| Suets | Titmice, Woodpeckers, Chickadees, Bluebirds, Nuthatches, and Cardinals |
| Nectar | All Nectavores birds like hummingbirds, sunbirds. |
Conclusion
While you select the right feed, it is important to remember that bird feeding is more important in winters. Hence you may need to change the feeding patterns as per the season. However, do not absolutely stop feeding them. Because certain birds will keep visiting you throughout the year or for the maximum number of months.
We understand your love for your beautiful backyard visitors. As you start offering different types of seeds in your feeder, be a sharp observant. Gradually, you will learn more about the food preferences and patterns of the birds. But to start, this guide on selecting wild bird feed is sure to help you a lot.