Many birds’ “ideal diet” is high in fats and proteins, which is just opposite of ours. Sunflower, safflower, niger seeds and peanuts range between 20-25% protein and 30-40% fat. When purchasing your bird food check the bag’s label and look for high protein and fat content. You’ll find “cheap” mixes full of milo, wheat, oats and other grains that birds don’t like and will not eat. They will just push it off to the side to get at the better seeds that they like and it ends up on the ground. Plus these filler seeds are 8 -12% protein and 2-4% fat. Give birds a boost in winter with high-energy suet. Our #1 top-quality sell in winter is Pine Tree Farms Peanut Butter Cakes. They also contain no fillers, just suet and peanuts. The Peanut Butter Cakes suet can be ordered from our secure site.

I have a birding friend who puts bay leaves in storage containors of bird seed. He is orginally from the southern part of the country where he says the use of bay leafs to keep bugs out of food storage containers is a common pratice. He recently had an infestation of mealmoths in his bird seed. He put puts bay leafs in a mesh sack on the top of his bird seed inside the sealed container. He says since he started to use the bay leafs he has not had anymore problems with mouths in his bird seed. Has only anyone else ever tried this or heard of this before? I sure would like to know if this really works or is a old wise tale?

Numerous brands of wild birdseed contian seeds that can sprout and become a noxious weed!  If seeds sprout beneath your own feeder, it is not that difficult to control the sprouts.  However, when birds fly off and distribute seeds in their droppings, wild areas can be affected.

The prevention of noxious weeds is one more reason I prefer whole black oil sunflower seeds only for my feeders. In addition, black oil sunflower seeds attracts a wide range of birds and the majority of seeds are consumed at the feeder resulting in minimal waste.  When some seeds are dropped, the ground feeders and squirrels will usually get the seed.  If some seeds do sprout, a sunflower growing is easy to see and pull and is not considered noxious in the wild.  When I clean up the shells under the feeder, I place the shells in my composter, worm bin or rake it in to my flower beds.  The shells provide good areation and nutrition to the soil.  My favorite feeder for black oil sunflower seeds is the Squirrel Buster Plus Feeder.  This feeder allows the smaller birds to have their feeder and I have a different feeder for the larger birds.

Thistle or niger seed for the finches is the other whole seed I use.  It is prety unlikely that the birds will transport seeds in droppings to India, Nepal or Ethiopia where thistle seed is primarily grown commercially.  The Squirrel Buster Finch Bird Feeder is the perfect niger or thisle seed feeder.  In the North West, you will attract American Goldfinches, House Finches, Purple Finches and Pine Siskin most of the year.

One other thing we bird lovers can do is choose foods that won’t sprout such as peanuts, sunflower hearts, and high quality suet cakes.

Just a couple more ways for each of us to be happy birders and be good stewards of nature.