Our Favorite Seed Mix

Regardless of the time of year, providing an appealing seed mix for the birds who visit you is key. The best feeder will see little use if the seed you use is not to the birds’ liking. Areas of the country in which winter is harsh present a further challenge. Additional nutritious items such as meat suet and suet cakes should be offered as they provide a high energy source to help sustain your visitors throughout the winter months.

For year round use, we recommend a combination of black/oil sunflower and safflower with an approximate ratio of 5 to 1 respectively. Cardinals, Chickadees, Titmice, Nuthatches, Blue Jays, all the Sparrow family and f inches, including House Finches and Goldfinches (these guys don’t eat just thistle/nyjer seed), Doves and many others will appreciate this menu offering.

Our experience demonstrates that you can’t go wrong with this mix. Seed such as millet and corn can attract some unwanted visitors such as starlings and grackles. These more predatory birds, who will scatter preferred song birds as they swoop in to feed, may still visit your feeding stations filled with our favorite mix, but their presence should be more limited.

So enjoy this tried and true mix. And experiment with the combination of the two seeds. You may find that the birds in your area prefer one over the other. Also, we have discovered that the time of year can have an affect on the concentration of oil sunflower to safflower mix that your birds prefer. Keep an eye out. Your birds will tell you what recipe is preferred at any given time.

Support Staff – the Outdoor Nature Resource.com

Tired of fighting with squirrels to keep them out of your bird feeder? Then it’s time to buy a
squirrel proof bird feeder.

There are now many models of the squirrel proof bird feeder. They are all designed to keep squirrels out. The twirl a squirrel bird feeder is made so that when a squirrel jumps on to the feeder it starts to twirl so that the squirrel can not get to the seed and eventually it will twirl it off the feeder.

Other squirrel proof bird feeders are mechanical in nature. They are activated by the heavy weight of the squirrel. One of these has a wire grid opening to the seed and when a squirrel gets on the perch its weight forces down the grid cutting off access to the seed. There are other designs using this same feature to keep out heavier animals.

Another type of squirrel proof bird feeder are those that use cages to keep out unwanted critters. The feeder itself is actually encaged not allowing bigger birds and squirrels to get to the seed.

If you are frustrated with constantly re-filling your feeder to only see it gone in a few days to those pesky squirrels I recommend looking at one of the many types of squirrel proof bird feeders. It will save you much frustration and time and money from constantly adding more seed to your feeder.