Summer Bird Feeding - How And What To Feed Summer Birds

Summer Is the Time to Try Some Different Bird Foods

Summertime is a great opportunity to experiment with foods other than seed on your bird feeding menu.

Try skewering orange or apple halves on a tree branch for tanagers, grosbeaks and orioles. Thrashers, mockingbirds and catbirds also enjoy fruit, including bananas and watermelon, which attract insects such as fruit flies that in turn may attract hummingbirds.

Consider "live" food for your summer birds. Breeding birds are partial to insects during the nesting season, so offer meal worms, which are beetle larvae, or a handful of grubs.

To entice species not normally bird feeder visitors you can put the insects in a window tray, or simply put out a dish with sides high enough to restrict the wriggly creatures.

Be alert for unusual visitors as curious migrants stop to investigate the activity around your feeding stations.

In between spring and fall migrations, the action is like watching a soap opera as dominant males vie for the best spots, trying to impress the females.

Later, when your neighborhood birds are raising their young, notice how the adults bring around their young for lessons in getting food and water.

Once the juveniles start coming on their own, you will have the opportunity to study their plumage before they molt into adult feathers.

Patterns and color show the greatest variations during the time between fledging and fall migration; the differences between some of the fledglings and their parents is amazing. There is no doubt that summer's birds are unique entertainment.

See: Our Fruit Feeder - Great for Attracting Summer Birds