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Goin' buggy
Attract fascinating and unusual birds to your yard with protein-packed feeder offerings
Contributed by Laura Erickson
Published: May 1, 2004 For most backyard birds, feeders are like vegetarian restaurants, designed for those who eat seeds, nectar, or fruit. Many feeding stations also offer suet, which chickadees, nuthatches, and woodpeckers enjoy, but these species often prefer peanut butter and take big helpings of sunflower seeds as well. Occasionally a Pine Warbler or other unusual species will dine at a suet feeder, but you won’t find strict Atkins Diet proponents among common feeder birds, except for the occasional hawk or shrike intent on grabbing one of those avian vegetarians.
Unfortunately for feeder watchers, many fascinating and beautiful songbirds aren’t attracted to typical fare. What can you offer to catch their interest? Meat and fish are out of the question — few wild birds are attracted to dead animals to begin with, and even the freshest meat spoils quickly. I know one northern Wisconsin birder who set a hard-boiled egg on his platform feeder every morning for a Bald Eagle. But even that unusually tame raptor came for only a few weeks, perhaps for a change of pace from an eagle’s usual diet of surf ’n’ turf — that is, fish and road kill.
Most songbirds consume insects. But what sensible person would be willing to infest backyard trees with tent caterpillars simply to attract cuckoos? Who would kill their trees with spruce budworms just because these grubs provide food for Cape May and Bay-breasted Warblers and Evening Grosbeaks? And no birdwatchers in their right minds would lace backyard trees with carpenter ants or wood-boring beetles in the hope of seeing a Pileated Woodpecker.
Mealworms pack protein: Happily, there are a few insects you can offer birds that won’t cause problems for humans or the environment. One excellent choice is mealworms — beetle larvae of the species Tenebrio molitor. Mealworms are serious pests in mills and granaries, to which mealworms were introduced from Europe during the late 1800s. But because mealworms eat milled grain and flour, they don’t survive long or reproduce in natural settings. They multiply in grain shipments and foodstuffs packaged in unsanitary conditions, and aren’t spread by the fishermen, bird-feeding advocates, or pet owners who use and sometimes raise them. Although it certainly makes sense to keep mealworms out of your kitchen, they are essentially flightless even as adults, and they can’t escape from a bucket or plastic bin to cause problems.
There are many ways to offer mealworms to birds. You can simply put them in a bowl (to keep them from crawling away) set on a feeder, deck railing, or other flat surface. Unfortunately, so very many birds eat grubs that if the feeder is too accessible, you’ll soon be feeding starlings, grackles, crows, and other species that we shouldn’t subsidize. So it’s wise, and much cheaper, to offer mealworms in small feeders that large birds can’t get into. Many people put them into “bluebird hopper feeders” specially designed for small birds, with entry holes that keep out larger species. If you notice birds becoming confused when trying to exit these acrylic-sided feeders, stick tape in the shape of an X on the acrylic so that birds can see the walls.
I usually set mealworms in small window feeders at times when I can pay attention — this way I can enjoy the songbirds and chase away the starlings. If you use acrylic window feeders, make sure drainage holes on the bottom are too small for the mealworms to squeeze through. During migration season, a host of ground-feeding birds gather under a stand of spruce trees in the back of my northeastern Minnesota yard. I spread white millet there for migrating sparrows and local doves. Sometimes I put a handful of mealworms in a bowl on the ground there, too. Thrushes, thrashers, and other bird species that typically stay away from the house notice them fairly quickly in this more secluded setting.
My backyard mealworm list includes Pileated, Hairy, Downy, and Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Black-capped Chickadee, Red- and White-breasted Nuthatches, Brown Creeper, American Robin, Hermit and Swainson’s Thrushes, Brown Thrasher, Gray Catbird, Cedar Waxwing, Pine Warbler, American Redstart, Chipping and Lincoln’s Sparrows, and Baltimore Oriole. When placed in more open habitat, mealworms also very often attract bluebirds.
Flies attract birds: Some beautiful birds feed fairly exclusively on flying insects caught on the wing, and virtually never visit mealworm feeders. To provide for some of them, drop a few chunks of melon or banana into a mesh bag. Soon swarms of fruit flies will appear. Fruit flies are common and even abundant in any area where fruits or vegetables are grown, and setting out ripe melon or banana chunks will concentrate them where you can watch. (In commercial growing regions, check with your Cooperative Extension Agent before attracting fruit flies.) Of course, the fruit will become moldy or rotten within a few days, and should be tossed. To simplify feeding and clean-up, I cut an onion bag into many six-inch squares. I’ll place a couple of chunks of fruit on a square, tie the corners with string, and hang it in a backyard tree. During migration, I hang out many of these disposable fruit-fly feeders at a time, and have attracted several species of flycatchers and warblers, both kinglets, and Cedar Waxwings. Hummingbirds occasionally visit too, providing lovely and animated entertainment, darting every which way as they chase the insects. Setting out mealworms and attracting fruit flies for birds is most helpful during the migration season. When passing through your neighborhood, migrants are strangers in a strange land, often exhausted and always hungry. Providing them with easy food sources will give a few of them a helping hand, while giving you the pleasure of watching them. And isn’t that what bird feeding is all about?
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Laura Erickson is the author of Sharing the Wonder of Birds with Kids, a 1997 National Outdoor Book Award winner. She writes a monthly column about birds for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, a bimonthly column “For the Birds” for the national weekly newspaper The Country Today, and also writes and produces the public radio program “For the Birds.” |
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