bird food – Page 2 – The Avant-Garden Shop

Feeding birds in your back yard can be fun and rewarding. Songbirds will add colour, life and vibrancy to your garden. Attracting and keeping songbirds, however, can depend on a number of factors including the type and quality of seed that you provide.

The most popular seed is black-oil sunflower, which is accepted by the greatest variety of birds. Black-oil sunflower is an oil-rich food that is a good source of energy. Its thin shell makes it easy to open, even for small birds. This seed is a particular favourite of cardinals, chickadees, evening grosbeaks and purple finches but is also part of the diet of most other songbirds. You can’t go wrong with a hanging tube or hopper-style feeder full of black-oil sunflower seed.

Blended mixes should also be part of a back yard feeding program. Good blends will contain black-oil sunflower, in addition to other ingredients that will provide variety and nutrition. The blend you choose will depend on the birds that you wish to attract. For example, blends that contain millet will attract juncos, mourning doves and sparrows. Blue jays favour peanuts and striped sunflower, while cardinals like safflower. Some blends are adjusted seasonally to provide birds with the nutrition they require at different times of the year. Retailers who specialize in wild bird feeding will be able to help you select the blend that is right for you.

If you are interested in attracting gold finches and other finches, then nyger seed should be at the top of your list. Nyger is a small seed that is also rich in oil. Alternatively, you can opt for a wild finch blend, which contains nyger, red millet and other seeds preferred by finches. This is a cost-effective alternative to pure nyger. For nyger seed and wild finch blends, you will require a tube-style feeder with tiny feeding ports.

When it comes to selecting birdseed, it’s wise to keep in mind that not all brands of birdseed are the same. Not only should you know which seed is favoured by different species of birds, you need to be aware that the quality of birdseed can vary greatly between different brands. The old maxim “you get what you pay for” is true even for birdseed.

Selecting top quality birdseed is not difficult when you know what to look for. Here are a few basics:

Look for birdseed that appears fresh. The fresher the ingredients are, the more likely that all of the food will be eaten and not wasted. Store your seed in tight-lidded containers to preserve freshness.

Look for seed that is clean and dust-free. Powder that is created during processing adds weight to a bag, which you pay for but which the birds won’t eat. Be wary of opaque packaging that doesn’t allow you to inspect all the seed.

Pay attention to ingredients. Avoid blends that contain wheat, milo (sorghum) and other “fillers” that birds won’t eat. Look for sunflowers, nuts, corn, millets and fruits to attract the most birds.

Discount brands tend to have sunflower seeds that are immature. Good quality blends have sunflower seeds with greater kernel density and thus more food for the birds. Avoid sunflower seeds that appear flat, which is a sign of immaturity.

Avoid buying bird feed with a powder-like appearance on the grains. This is a sign of mould. Once contaminated, mould will spread quickly through a bag of seed. No birds will eat mouldy seed.

Finally, once you are attracting birds to your yard, keep them coming back by ensuring that they have a clean and fresh supply of food. Inspect and clean your feeders on a regular basis and dispose of any seed that has gone mouldy. By providing birds with a good quality seed in a well-maintained feeder you will enjoy weeks of enjoyable bird watching in your own back yard.

The Avant-Garden Shop is a retail store specializing in backyard birding supplies and gardening accessories. Visit them at 165 Sherbrooke St. in Peterborough, online at www.avantgardenshop.com, or contact them by phone at 705-743-0068 (toll-free 877-886-0869).

Feeding wild birds in Canada during the winter months requires some special consideration. Canadian winters are very cold and the nights are long, sources of water are often frozen and shelter remains a must for many fragile birds. Even grit, which birds require in order to digest food, can become quite scarce in midwinter when the snow is deep. A simple thing like feeder maintenance can make all the difference in the world.

Many birds feed during the day only and thus require enough food to sustain warmth during the long winter nights. In Canada, the winter nights can last up to 15 hours and for some birds, the relationship between the length of night, cold temperatures and the availability of food, will determine survival. A study by Kendeigh (1945) illustrates this relationship as it affects the House Sparrow. The study found that the House Sparrow could go for 67 1/2 hours without food at 85 degrees Fahrenheit. At 50 degrees, there was a substantial decrease in survival time. At 5 degrees, the House Sparrow could survive only 15 hours without food. At -20 F, it could live only 10 hours, and at -30 F, lived for only 7 hours.

It is critical that food is available to birds at dawn and at dusk, to enable birds to survive the long and cold Canadian nights. Food at dusk will prepare a bird for the night, and at dawn, food will provide warmth to help it recover from the night. Corn is a good source of carbohydrates, which in turn gives birds energy to stay warm. Suet is also a good source of high-energy food for warmth. So when your seed supplier advertises, “No Corn” mixes, add some corn to the seed to help keep the birds warm!

There are other ways to help birds endure the cold. Roosting boxes offer excellent shelter by increasing the temperature of the immediate surrounding area for the inhabitant. Cardinals will stay overnight in dense coniferous trees – perhaps a good use for discarded Christmas trees!

Another winter difficulty faced by birds is the availability of fresh water. Some birds have difficulty consuming snow as a source of water and thus fresh water is preferable. Bird enthusiasts can help by providing a heater in the birdbath or there are birdbaths with heaters built in.

Proper feeder maintenance will ensure that an ample amount of bird feed will be available to help keep the birds warm. Be sure to keep the tray of the feeder free of ice and frozen seed. Sometimes the seed will freeze and block the flow of seed and even though it will look as if the feeder is full, the birds will not have access to the vital nourishment. Keep the seed as dry as possible and this will prove to be good prevention at locations such as cottages where maintenance may only be performed occasionally.

Finally, the availability of grit diminishes in the winter, as the snow grows deeper. Birds are often forced to find grit on the roadway, which presents two problems. Firstly, there is the obvious threat of traffic, and second, the grit on the road is often mixed with salt and birds would be better off without the salt. The Season’s Woodland Bird Food Mix from The Avant-Garden Shop has grit mixed in during the fall and winter months!

Remember that as the winter passes, the natural sources of food will be consumed and backyard bird feeding will become increasingly important in providing our Canadian wild birds with the sustenance they need to survive the long winter and to endure until nature begins to provide again.

Original article written by by Mark Bennett of Wild Bird Trading

How to Select Bird Seed

Winter Bird Feeding