Best Berries for Birds?? Any thoughts?

Hi, Birdsters,

Yes, it's that time of the winter when I get around to creating my own bird food concoctions.

And I would like to know which fruits and berries work for YOU (to attract the birds) the best? And how do you 'serve' them up to the birds (like recipes for berry-seed cakes)?

And which fruits attract which birds in your yarden, that is.

I have googled and found many sites that talk about berries (blueberries, poison ivy berries, etc.) and fruits (such as apples and oranges), but I would like to know about your personal experiences especially.

(I haven't had much luck with fruits in my feeders. Can you tell?)

Anyway, here's a list of berries for birds that I found on the internet to get started: http://www.rlrouse.com/berries-for-birds.html

And do you think any of the berry cakes in this link work: http://www.bird-house-bath.com/fruit-bird-food.html

And do you know of a good online resource to buy dried berries/cherries (and even nuts) at a discount? In bulk, perhaps?

I would love to hear about any of your observations! Thanks. t.

p.s. a picture of my birdfeeding operation for 2008/9. Of course, no birds around when I took the pic!

Sorry no one answered you t. I only have holly and a few other types here. The Holly is very popular with the Mockingbirds and Bluebirds.

From what I read the Elderberry is the one most types of birds like.

I haven't had any success with the dried berry fruits in mixes at my feeders.

Sorry I can't help with the bulk buying thing.

This Spring I plan on trying some new things with fresh fruit so I'll have more to report then.

Have you checked with the folks at Gardening for Wildlife forum? They might know more. :-)

Rowan is very good, as the berries are juicy. Many other Rosaceae species (e.g. hawthorns, cotoneasters, etc.) tend to have drier, mealy-textured fruit which is less popular.

Resin

Mulberry trees are very popular with the birds.

Virginia creepers, I don't have it in my yard but did observe a lot of birds feeding from it. It was planted as and edges on a chain link fence.
What attracted the Bohemian Waxwings here were red grapes, which I had thrown on the ground, and raisin and blueberries, I also added the Rowen, which Resin already mention, which I think we know as Mountain ashes berries. I had gathered it in the Fall. In the springs crabapples, were popular with Robins and Starlings and Bohemian Waxwings.
I don't know of any source for dry berries, sorry.

Here in Louisiana the most used fruit tree is the mulberry. During migration the varieties of birds seen at one time on any mulberry tree is amazing. In my own yard I have seen very good results with mulberry. Also I have used commericial suet cakes but with poor results. I have a recipe for suet that is very successful for attracting birds that seldom use feeders. To make it I blend peanuts and rasins in a food processor to add to the usual peanutbutter, oats, lard, cornmeal, flour, and sunflower seeds. Works great!
Johanna

My many types of viburnum + Sparkleberry & Hearts a Bustin, and of course the everppular holly berry!

I tried apples last winter /spring with no luck. Supposedly woodpeckers and in particular the pileated like them.

I put grapes out last month in the platform, but no takers. But during the summer orioles, catbirds, jays, woodpeckers and some cardinals all eat them. I finally put them on the ground and the raccoons ate them!

I didn't have much luck with oranges or raisins. They ended up in the trash.

Never have tried dried fruit except for what was already in any birdfood.

I think a lot just depends on what they are used to naturally finding in the area where they are. And individual taste, just like us!

Here some of the jays and cardinals just love the corn off the cobs, but not all of them will eat it.

My parrot can't stand dried fruit so I put it in the platform feeder a number of times but the birds didn't like it.

I put raisins out often and they always get eaten!

I've tried putting out fruit for the birds but they only eat fresh fruit in the summer months. The bird mix that I buy has some dried fruit in it and the only ones that I see taking these pieces are the blue jays and the red bellied wp. I think that naturally dehydrated fruit (read: neglected fruit in the refrigerator) is probably more desirable than the commercially dried fruit because of the chemicals that they use to process it. Maybe the birds know enough to not eat it! LOL
My experience with the berry/suet cakes has been dismal. The suet eating birds don't like them as much and they attract attention from the raccoons and opossum which are in abundance here.

oh contrere....I keep a suet feeder up year round at my picture window. Wonderful Carolina Wrens, Chickadees, Tufted Titmouse's, Nuthatches, both little Brown Headed and White Breasted, small woodpeckers- Downy and Red bellied, Cardinals....I could go on, but if you put one or 2 of your own up you can see for yourself

Cardinals, Blue Jays, and Red-bellied Woodpeckers like red grapes. I've put out old cherries too and I think only the Blue jays ate them.

As for planting berry producers, I agree with Juneybug and Johanna that Mulberry trees are a favorite of a wide variety of birds including Cedar Waxwings. Last year, I saw my first and only Yellow-breasted Chat on my neighbor's Mulberry Tree.

Beautyberry is another favorite. I planted one small bush and immediately had mockingbirds, thrashers and gray catbirds eating from it. Plus, the berries are just beautiful.

I have used dried cranberries to attract Bohemian Waxwings. They work best late in the season when natural foods are getting scarce.

I have tried a couple of the fruit suets, orange was picked at very slowly. Apple... no bird would touch that stuff here. It also went in to the trash!! Cherry got eaten, but it took awhile. My birds seem to prefer those that are the plain with seeds & nuts.

yes, those r the ones tht mine go at fastest, but I get all of the varieties. Until now I never even thought of why some went faster than others

it seems like anything that has peanut peanut in it is the crowd favorite here in my yard...I don't bother with any of the fruit or seed suet cakes anymore

Thank you, thank you, thank you, for all your observations!

I will make a note of all of them in my DG diary.

I did buy some fresh blueberries at the market and put them out this week (a cold and snowy week) with no takers! Couldn't believe it.

I am going to put in some more holly bushes this spring. And perhaps some of the others mentioned above.

I have really noticed a dip in our bird population since our bushes died last year.

Thanks again. t.

Tabasco,

Did you have a couple of posts last year showing photos of berry bushes in your yard? There was a link in a recent thread (within the past two months) with two people who had a variety of bushes in their yards. I was trying to find that link through the search engine (which was actually working), but I still couldn't locate it.

If I remember correctly, these weren't people berries, but bushes like various hollies, and other shrubs. If anyone could post a link to that here, I would certainly appreciate it. I should have tagged it when I first saw it.

penne,

I don't think I posted any pics of berry bushes, but I remember a good discussion about good bushes to include in a bird garden. I'll see what I can find.

Thanks, resin, your observations about berries in the wrong place (or even season, I suppose) makes a lot of sense. And I think I agree. And your remarks make me wonder how the birds find their food? Is it through sightings? Watching where other birds find food (it seems like the titmice are the first to find new foods I put out and the others follow)? Sound (I read WPs 'hear' insects in the trees and then head for that spot (I don't know if I believe that.)? Or fragrance/odor/scent (this seems reasonable to me, but I read that the experts think birds have very tiny olfactory lobes and couldn't smell much at all.)

I'm trying to streamline (and reduce the budget for) our birdfeeding operation. For a while we were purchasing Heath's 'peanut suet' by the case from the feed store (it was cheap) but I melted some down and found that it was mostly millet seed along with some kind of 'fat' (maybe kidney suet?) and probably peanut flavor (I didn't taste it!) and the birds seemed to pretty much ignore it (but the squirrels ate it). So I would add chopped peanuts to the melt and maybe raisins and refrigerate in molds (muffin tins). Then I started leaving out the fruit since our birds didn't seem to care. Now I am just making a plain peanut dough (something like the "Bluebird Banquet" recipe on the Sialis site), and that seems to be the most economical and loved just as much by the woodpeckers various, wrens, titmice, etc. so I'm saving some $$ and trouble, I think. And the squirrels don't seem quite as interested (when leaving out the nuts, fruits and the sunflower hearts).

Also, I saw a guy from Cornell Ornth. Labs (I think he was the head of the lab) on Martha Stewart saying if you want the Woodpeckers (especially the Pileateds) you don't need to do anything fancy, just get some kidney suet (he stressed it must be suet from the kidney) from the Butcher and nail it to the trees (icky sounding, isn't it?) and they will LUV it. And so I did that and so far the woodpeckers fly right by it (it's on about 4 trees). The squirrels also ignore it, which is a 'good thing' I guess. Racoons love the kidney suet, but they are supposed to be hybernating now (I think) which is why I tried it now. Well, I put some red grapes around it and no takers then, either.

Well, thanks again for all the good details posted above. You all make me believe that all the fancy suets (with berries, etc.) for sale in the bird feeding aisle are really 'over the top' and not necessary for wintertime feeding. (When we can afford it, though, I do love to put out the Birdola Woodpecker Seed Cakes!)

It's a 'snow day' here today, so we will have lots of good birds at the feeders. A good day for observations on which food is the most popular!

Hope you all have your shovelling finished and are able to enjoy the snow today, too! t.

Here's a link to my article. I've got a table on there with a list of plants for birds.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/1821/

Also, here's the link to that great thread for landscape plants that Tabasco started and lilyfantn posted lots of pix.

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/682674/

Through trial and error I have most simple suets to be the preferred ones here at my house.

Thanks Mrs Ed, I was looking all over the place for that this morning.

If you ever forget, I put it in your sticky. It's also in my article.

I saw that. Thanks!

Thanks Mrs Ed!

You've probably received all the information you can possibly use. I just thought I'd share with you that my Christmas wreath had beautiful holly berries on it and the bluebirds just came up on the porch and denuded the two wreaths which were hanging on the front door. They were relentless with getting them off and finally succeeded in pulling the branches off the wreath. It was fun to observe.

Mrs Ed, liked your article, Lots of good info.

That's funny Pam!

I have kept suet out constantly for three years and nothing ever touches it. It is still a full cake when I throw it away. The squirrels don't even touch it. I have tried all the different commercial varieties and still nothing touches it.

wow, frank, that's just odd.

That is surprising. In the Spring and early summer when so many birds have little ones is when almost all the birds eat suet here.

this cake has been hanging for a month.

Frank, you know it might be rancid. I bought that cage you have and two of those packaged suets with peanuts and bird seed at the big box store. They were out a couple of weeks, and one was nibbled or pecked on one corner, but that was it. I think the birds tried and said yuck-o! I thought about getting fresh suet from the butcher and making my own, but like many things, I just never got to it.

I put new in every couple of months. Maybe the birds heard about the peanut butter scare.

Thanks, Res, for your response to my musing about how the birds find the food. It's a mystery to me, but fascinating to watch how the birds source the food we put out. I've decided the cardinals are the 'dumb blondes' of the avian world and wouldn't get a bite to eat if the titmice didn't show them.

The woodpeckers sure haven't found my kidney suet I put up on the side of the tree either and I feel like calling Martha and tellling her she needs a new bird expert on her show.

Pamgarden, that's a funny story about your holly wreath and the bluebirds! I wish I had some nosey bluebirds coming by my front door. No birds were interested in my wreath except a couple of Carolina wrens looking for the seeds in the pinecones, I think. They left the juniper berries behind. I did notice that since my holly bushes met their demise in the summer drought that I have many fewer cute sparrows and the towhees took up accommodation in someone else's yard this winter. I miss them.

We have had a lot of business at our feeders during this snowy period and the squirrels have been relentless. I have narrowed my offerings to just safflower for the time being because it doesn't have great appeal to the critters but the Northern Cardinals love it and they are a stunning sight against the snowy backdrop.

Mrs. Ed, thanks for the link to the good article. I remember reading it when it first came out. And what a good idea to put the info into the sticky. Very handy that way. I was researching some of this nutritional info about birds on 'Birds by Bent' online, and that is an exceptional source for bird info (especially historical) and I hope it gets included in the stickies, if it isn't already.

I read on an English birding site about the merits of Peanut Flour which I had never heard of. The Brits are always on to these bird things before they get to the States. I don't know what one uses Peanut Flour for, except maybe to mix into suet. I don't know if it's part of the big recall but maybe so.

Again, thanks everyone for all the personal observations about berries. I know there are lots of lists out there in cyberland, but sometimes I think verification from personal experience is so valuable. The internet has a way of perpetuating fallacies, I think.

Frank, instead of hanging a new cake this time, just try spreading a big dab of peanut butter on that tree... it looks like it has good rough bark, so that should work (and I don't think it will hurt the tree). If they like that, try making one of the peanut butter suet cakes... I posted a recipe in my "make a feeder from your Christmas tree" article, http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/467/

I tried adding dried raisins, cranberries, etc to this recipe once... they ended up on the ground. But I'm glad to know red bellied woodpeckers might enjoy raisins, as I've got a pair of those enthusiastically eating sunflower and peanuts from my new no-no feeder (which, btw, is a yes-yes feeder as far as the squirrels are concerned).

critterologist... you are correct...PB is THE best suet that can be made & I was also thinking of adding the fresh or dried berries to it. Ever try switching the container that the suet sits in?? I've heard some birds prefer a simple mesh bag..like the ones onions come in at the store. Just a thought.