Home > About Us

When to Feed Specialty Foods


Feeding the birds is a wonderful pastime and a great way to encourage birds to visit your yard. Most people feed various types of seeds all year long, but in each season you can attract more birds by adding specialty bird foods along with your regular bird seed choices.

Spring:
Welcome returning orioles and hummingbirds with nectar. They can subsist on insects until the flowers bloom, but if you offer nectar you’ll easily attract these birds into your yard. Orioles also enjoy orange halves and grape jelly.

Spring is a time of raising young. Nestlings can’t eat seeds and must be fed a diet of insects. You can help the parents by offering insect foods to take back to the nest. Insect foods include mealworms, either roasted, canned or live. Other insect foods include dried waxworms and canned fly larvae. Another good food for nestlings is suet. Choose suet with insects included—it’s an excellent food for them. When the young birds fledge and start to visit your feeders, try high-fat Miracle Meals on a platform or covered dish along with bird seed.

Summer:
Many birds raise several broods each spring and summer, so continue to offer insect foods for them. You can still offer suet as the weather heats up, but look for suet that says “no-melt” or has the word “Delight” in the name. These suets have a drier consistency and won’t drip in hot weather.

Orioles often seem to “disappear” in summer, but hummingbirds will visit your feeders every day. Keep offering nectar and make sure to change it every three days or so, especially in hot weather. Clean feeders thoroughly before each refill. Goldfinches nest later in the year than most birds. That’s because they use the down from thistle plants to build their nests and their young fledge just when thistle seeds become ripe. Offering Nyjer seed (similar to thistle seeds) in summer is especially helpful to young goldfinches. And finches love it!

Fall:
Fall is a time of great activity as birds prepare for migration. During this time, birds that usually dine only on seeds and insects will appreciate fruit and berries in their diet. It’s believed that the antioxidants in fruit and berries help the birds cope with the stress of migration. Offer dried blueberries and cranberries, along with dried mealworms that include fruits and berries. You can also offer slices of apple, grapes and pieces of banana.

Suet is an excellent food for birds preparing for migration and for birds stopping to refuel along migration routes. With the cooler weather, you can now offer a wider variety of high-fat suet cakes, pellets, suet balls and plugs. Varieties with fruit are likely to be very well accepted in fall. Higher fat foods such as peanuts or peanut butter are also good fall choices.

Winter:
While many birds have migrated, the birds that remain behind have special needs to help them survive winter. Suet should be available to birds all winter long and it stays fresher longer. Birds will appreciate any variety of suet, especially those with peanuts, seeds, peanut butter and insects.

Seed blends with tree nuts and peanuts are also a good, high-fat choice for winter feeding, along with dried mealworms, waxworms and Miracle Meals. Bird lovers are often surprised to see robins in winter, especially after a snowstorm! They are looking for berries left over from fall. You can offer them insect foods, dried blueberries, cranberries and raisins softened in warm water.

Try adding specialty foods appropriate to the season and see how many birds you’ll attract!