Colorful birds can make your garden more beautiful, improve your mood, and develop your plants because some of them eat insects that harm what you grow. However, to attract them into your garden, you need to prepare what they love.
Here are the best bird food to attract colorful birds you can buy in 2024:
- Best For Nut Eating Birds: Kaytee Wild Bird Food
- Best For Jays: Wagner’s 82072 Gourmet Nut & Fruit Wild Bird Food
- Best For Chickadees: Lyric Peanut Pieces Wild Bird Seed
- Best For Cardinals: Audubon Park Songbird Blend Wild Bird Food
- Best For Woodpeckers: Wild Delight No Waste Bird Food
- Best For Avoiding Squirrels: Valley Farms Safflower Seed Wild Bird Food
| 6 Best Bird Food To Attract Colorful Birds | ||
|---|---|---|
Best For Nut Eating Birds | Kaytee Wild Bird Food | |
Best For Jays | Wagner’s 82072 Gourmet Nut & Fruit Wild Bird Food | |
Best For Chickadees | Lyric Peanut Pieces Wild Bird Seed | |
Best For Cardinals | Audubon Park Songbird Blend Wild Bird Food | |
Best For Woodpeckers | Wild Delight No Waste Bird Food | |
Best For Avoiding Squirrels | Valley Farms Safflower Seed Wild Bird Food | |
Best For Nut Eating Birds: Kaytee Wild Bird Food
- Versatile
- Fresh seeds
- Pricey
If you want to attract nut-loving birds who have a high-energy demand, the Kaytee Wild Bird Food is an ideal choice. Apart from a rich blend of seeds and grains, this product contains many added nut and fruit pieces to provide a lot of energy for wild birds to fly.
| Kaytee Wild Bird Food Specifications | |
|---|---|
Weight | 5 Pounds |
Flavor | Cherry |
Age Range | All life stages |
Highlight Features | High-energy food Year-round feeding |
The Kaytee Wild Bird Food contains a high content of nuts to provide a lot of energy for nut eating birds.
Best For Jays: Wagner’s 82072 Gourmet Nut & Fruit Wild Bird Food
- Straightforward to lift and pour in the feeder
- Easy to open and close thanks to its velcro top
- Pricey
In case you want to attract beautiful jays into your garden, the good news is that they are not picky eaters. They can eat most common garden bird food such as suet, cracked corn, and seeds.
So, what makes Wagner's 82072 Gourmet Nut & Fruit Wild Bird Food special?
Jays like consuming whole peanuts that have a similar size to the acorns that they eat in the wild. When looking at the product picture, you can easily recognize that the peanut ingredient in this blend is kept the whole size.
| Wagner’s 82072 Gourmet Nut & Fruit Wild Bird Food Specifications | |
|---|---|
Weight | 5 pounds |
Age Range | All life stages |
Highlight Features | 5-highly nutritious food No fillers Year-round food |
Jays love the size of seed ingredients in the Wagner’s 82072 Gourmet Nut & Fruit Wild Bird Food.
Best For Chickadees: Lyric Peanut Pieces Wild Bird Seed
- Fresh
- No mess
- High price
If you want chickadees to visit your garden, prepare their preferred bird food. The Lyric Peanut Pieces Wild Bird Seed is a typical example. All ingredients in this product are free of shells and hulls and this species of bird loves hulled sunflower seeds and shelled peanuts. This bird food contains what they love the most.
| Lyric Peanut Pieces Wild Bird Seed Specifications | |
|---|---|
Weight | 15 lb |
Flavor | Peanut |
Age Range | All life stages |
Highlight Features | Year-round food Zero waste High-protein and high-fat content |
The Lyric Peanut Pieces Wild Bird Seed is produced with ingredients without hulls and shells, which is the best for chickadees.
Best For Cardinals: Audubon Park Songbird Blend Wild Bird Food
- Reasonable price
- Fresh
- Too many sunflower seeds
I highly recommend the Audubon Park Songbird Blend Wild Bird Food for cardinals because the manufacturer said that their product can attract many bird species and one of them is cardinals. Of course, this is not the only reason.
Customers also proved its effect that lasts for years. When using this food, cardinals and other birds keep coming back to their garden for a long time.
| Audubon Park Songbird Blend Wild Bird Food Specifications | |
|---|---|
Weight | 14 pounds |
Age Range | All life stages |
Highlight Features | Premium blend |
The Audubon Park Songbird Blend Wild Bird Food has many preferred ingredients of cardinals.
Best For Woodpeckers: Wild Delight No Waste Bird Food
- Fresh
- No mess - no hulls and husks
- Expensive
No matter which species of woodpeckers you want to attract into your garden, the Wild Delight No Waste Bird Food can accomplish your task. It is formulated with preferred ingredients of all woodpecker species.
| Wild Delight No Waste Bird Food Specifications | |
|---|---|
Weight | 5 lb |
Age Range | All Life Stages |
Highlight Features | An elite, zero-waste wild bird food |
Woodpeckers love consuming the Wild Delight No Waste Bird Food because of their preferred ingredients in this blend.
Best For Avoiding Squirrels: Valley Farms Safflower Seed Wild Bird Food
- Squirrels don't go near it
- Cardinals love it
- Expensive
Do you just want to attract birds, not squirrels who also love some ingredients in the bird food blend such as fruit, seeds, and nuts? If so, choose a product that contains only the preferred ingredients of birds. Luckily, the Valley Farms Safflower Seed Wild Bird Food is what you are looking for even though squirrels hate an ingredient in this bird food - safflower seed. Customers also had successful experience in avoiding squirrels with this product.
| Valley Farms Safflower Seed Wild Bird Food Specifications | |
|---|---|
Weight | 4 lbs |
Flavor | Rose |
Highlight Features | Safflower Seed |
The Valley Farms Safflower Seed Wild Bird Food can keep squirrels from eating them since they hate safflower seed.
How To Choose The Best Bird Food To Attract Colorful Birds?
Which Type Of Colorful Bird Do You Want To Attract?
Although there is a variety of colorful birds, each of them has different desirable food. If you have your favorite types of colorful birds, choose the right bird food with their desirable ingredients. Below are some examples:
Cardinals
Cardinals are not picky, but they like sunflower seeds the most. Besides, you can also attract them with other food such as insects, suet, cracked corn, fruits (blueberry bushes, mulberry trees, dark-colored berries) and other seeds such as black oil sunflower, Nyjer, Striped sunflower, sunflower chips and hearts, safflower seeds, and unsalted and roasted and unroasted unsweetened peanuts.
Blue Jays
The favorite foods of Blue jays are raw peanuts, suet, fruits (cherries, and blackberries). You can also attract these birds with black oil sunflower, cracked corn, sunflower seeds, and acorns.
Bluebirds
Bluebirds like tiny insects such as moths, termites, grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, ants, and spiders, mosquitoes, snails, grubs, caterpillars, and insect larvae, even live, dried, canned, or roasted mealworms. When it comes to fruits and plants, they eat diced and whole berries (hackberries, raspberries, blackberries), sumac, holly, dogwood, and pokeweed, pears, apples, dried raisins, blueberries, cranberries, currants, chopped peanuts, peanut butter, sunflower chips and hearts, cherries, and grapes. Other considerations include bird dough, suet, eggshells.
Finches (purple finches, house finches, goldfinches, and yellow American goldfinches)
Finches love different seed types such as Nyjer seeds and sunflower seeds because they are high in oil and offer the nutrients this species requires.
Woodpeckers
Woodpeckers enjoy consuming suet cakes, but they are also attracted by the menu below:
- Different nuts (the most popular option is unsalted and unsweetened peanuts, even peanut butter). Don't use raw peanuts that affect birds' digestive system.
- Seeds like sunflower seeds
Which Kinds Of Food Can Attract Your Preferred Birds?
If you wonder about the kinds of bird food that can attract all of your loved colorful birds, you need the information below:
Black-Oil Sunflower Seeds
These small seeds with thin shells are rich in energy. They are preferred food for Bluebirds, Nuthatches, Finches, Chickadees, Grosbeaks, Cardinals, and Blue Jays.
Thistle or Nyjer
The beautiful gold color birds - goldfinches and their cousins - the Red-hued House Finches and bright colored Buntings love these small but high-quality seeds.
Seed Mixes
Seed mixes are one of the most popular kinds of food for birds. However, they are so messy because birds will pick over and toss their unwanted seeds away.
Peanuts, Almonds, Pecans, Walnuts And Other Nuts
These seeds are nutritious and natural, attracting nuthatches, chickadees, jays, and woodpeckers. This type is pretty expensive, so I don't recommend you use it on a regular basis.
Fruits
Fruits are the preferred food of Mockingbirds, Catbirds, Bluebirds, Robins, Orioles, Jays, and Woodpeckers. Specifically, you can consider bananas, sliced apples, oranges, and raisins.
Suet
Suet is a type of animal fat that is a healthy source of protein for birds. This is often used in winter because at this time, the food is scarce. There are a variety of suet cakes that are mixed with different seeds, mealworms, crickets, dried flies, fruits, nuts, and seeds.
Nectar
This is sugar water. Hummingbirds - the most notable nectar-loving birds - will drink it through a hummingbird feeder.
How Is A Good Mix Proportion?
If the bird food is a blend of different seeds, choose a product with a high proportion of seeds such as millet and sunflower. Bird food with a lower quality of seeds will have more fillers such as oats, wheat, cracked corn, milo, and other grains that birds don't eat.
How To Choose Fresh Bird Food?
There is inedible debris, empty hulls, and excessive dust in the mix. These are the sign of old seeds, not freshness. Meanwhile, the signs of mildew, mold, and insect infestation are clumps, webbing, feces, worms, and moths.
Which Brands Make The Best Bird Food To Attract Colorful Birds?
Wagner’s
Wagner’s was founded in 1894 in the USA by Wagner’s Pet Products Group. They are one of the most famous brands of bird food all over the world. This brand has a variety of bird food products with different sizes.
FAQs
Does bird food go bad?
Like other kinds of food, bird food like birdseed will also go bad, spoil, and grow moldy, if you don't store it properly.
Does bird food go bad if it gets wet?
Yes.
Wet bird food will spoil and mold quickly because it encourages the growth of bacteria. Thus, it will spread diseases to birds in your backyard, even being fatal. In fact, birds don’t want to eat spoiled food, so you waste a certain amount of bird food. Birds will visit other places that have better food sources.
Wet birdseed usually has a musty smell. Although birds are not bothered by odors, they don’t like feeding stations with stench. In particular, a strong smell will attract unexpected visitors such as predators and feeder pests (bears, raccoons, rats, and mice) who will damage and cause other problems in your place.
If your bird food is oily seeds such as Nyjer, hulled sunflower seed, and black oil sunflower seeds, the wetness of these seeds will create a large clump that clogs feeding ports. Thus, birds can’t access seeds inside. Sometimes, wet seeds will cause oily stains, making your feeding station ugly.
Some wet bird seeds will germinate and sprout and birds won’t eat sprouted seeds. In this case, you waste bird food. If you grow them in your garden, they will disrupt your flower beds, and turf.
How long does bird food last?
If you store bird food in the right way, it can stay fresh for up to 6-12 months, even longer. To last its freshness as long as possible, keep it from moisture and extreme heat which causes the growth of mildew and mold.
How to tell if bird food is spoiled?
The bird food is spoiled with the following signs:
Birds won’t eat it anymore.
Birds stop visiting your feeders.
Bird food has a damp or musty odor.
Your bird food is damp when touching or clumpy.
You see sprouting seeds, mold, and live or dead insects in the bird food.
How do you store bird food to keep it fresh?
Store your bird food in an airtight container (a big plastic tub or metal garbage with a tight lid) to keep it from squirrels, mice, and other critters. After that, you put this container in a cool and dark place like the basement.
Buy a small quantity of bird food in the summer when seeds can be soiled easily.
Freezing seed and suet can keep them fresh longer (up to 1 year.) You can toss an entire bag of birdseed into a chest freezer or separate them into smaller portions to put in a sealed freezer-safe storage bag.
Wash your bird feeders often (at least once per season) with soap and water. For hummingbird feeders, you need to clean it more often, every week, for example. In this case, what you need to prepare includes vinegar or bleach and a stiff brush.
Conclusion
Although I recommend the best bird food to attract colorful birds, it can’t attract all bird species. Determine the birds who you want to see in your garden the most, then choose a product containing a high content of their preferred ingredients.
Harry RamosI’m Harry Ramos, who's crazy about all things green. I’m here to share some experience in my gardening adventure and how to choose the best products for your garden. Let's dig in, get our hands dirty, and celebrate the simple, earthy pleasures of the garden together!
