If you’re looking for an easy way to experience nature all around you, consider buying some bird seed. Feeding birds serves several purposes. First, it helps youngsters learn to identify the wide variety of bird species. Second, it’s great for the birds themselves. Reports conclude that birds in areas with feeders are in overall better health and experience less stress. If you’re intimidated by the choices of bird seed on the market, don’t be. We’ve found a handful of no-brainer options for you.
Attracts wide range of birds
If you’re new to feeding birds, this blend from Wagner’s is a good place to start. It attracts a wide range of birds, which can be fed via a tube, hopper or platform feeder. Better yet, it’s an attractive meal any season of the year. Place your feeder is an area already popular with birds, and let the feast begin.
No mess packaging
Why does this look like a box of coffee instead of bird food? We don’t know but maybe it’s apropos because these seeds from Wildlife Sciences are a high-energy blend. Ingredients include rendered beef suet, cracked corn, black oil sunflower and processed grain by-products. The food is served in a cake-like form in packaging that’s easy to open and 100 percent recyclable.
Healthy recipe
This recipe sounds good enough for use to try as trail mix – alas, we won’t: dried cranberries, raisins, shelled peanuts, almonds, cashews, pecans, Valencia peanuts, pistachios, steamed crimped corn, black oil sunflower seeds, sunflower kernels and shelled pumpkin seeds. Because of the inclusion of unshelled nuts and seeds, it’s important to serve this mix in a feeder that will shield the food from rain and snow. The seeds will attract robins, orioles, blue jays, cardinals and more.
100 percent edible
Hulled sunflower seeds are the key here, allowing the food to be 100 percent consumable. (No hulls also mean less of a mess after feeding ends. This mix from Kaytee is designed to attract cardinals, finches, chickadees and more year-round.
High-energy food
Unlike competing bird feed options, this recipe from Wagner’s is 100 percent black oil sunflower seeds – a variety that has a thinner shell that smaller-beaked birds can handle. Look for it to attract cardinals, chickadees, finches, woodpeckers and more.
Steve Spears is editor of Florida Travel & Life, an online brand that inspires active, affluent travelers, providing them with insider information on discovering the best of Florida. Informative and engaging, the website showcases travel destinations, arts and cultural venues, vibrant dining scenes, recreational activities, the great outdoors and the revitalized real-estate market. He is based in Orlando and counts St. Augustine, Key West and the Gulf Beaches among his favorite destinations in the state.
