Birdfeeders

When we are trying to attract birds to our yards, the most important part of our bird feeding program is what food to offer. Without the right food, few birds will visit no matter how many bird feeders you have. The best way to know what foods are preferred by your visitors is to offer choices and watch carefully. Hang a large platform feeder as your experimental bird feeder.  In each corner, put a different food and see which one disappears the fastest and which may not be touched. For example, start with sunflower seeds, nutmeats, fruit and cracked corn. If one of those is ignored, try some bread, millet or suet. It really is fun to experiment and a platform feeder works well for this project. I often introduce a new food in ours, just to see if it is accepted. Also, by placing the platform feeder on the ground and beginning the experiment again, the ground feeding birds can also be included.