Foods

It is relatively easy to plan for winter bird feeding. There are three main choices of food: large seeds, small seeds, and suet.

Large seeds include black-oil sunflower, striped sunflower, safflower, peanuts, shelled corn, ear corn and cardinal mixes that contain sunflower, safflower and peanuts.

About 80 to 90 percent of seed I use in Minnesota is comprised of black-oil sunflower seeds and cardinal mixes. These have the greatest appeal to the broadest variety of winter birds and contain a high energy content.

The list of birds that favor sunflower seeds is impressive: Northern cardinals, Blue jays, Black-capped and Chestnut-backed chickadees, House and Purple finches, American goldfinches, Evening and Pine grosbeaks, Gray and Steller's jays, nuthatches, crossbills, titmice, and many more.

If you provide sunflower seeds on your deck or patio, you may wish to try sunflower hearts to avoid the mess that occurs in spring when you discover several inches of sunflower seed hulls under your feeders.

Peanuts provide a nutritious diet for birds, including Black-capped chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, and Blue jays. Even Northern cardinals will come to a peanut feeder.