- Offer sugar water in commercial liquid feeders to attract hummingbirds to your yard. This tiny delightful bird also enjoys eating the sweet nectar of flowering plants like honeysuckle, trumpet vine and columbine. Woodpeckers will also seek out and return to a small bowl filled with sugar water.
- Scatter dried corn or millet to attract quail, pheasants, doves and pigeons to your rural acreage. Other large birds, including blackbirds will enjoy these grain treats. In addition, you can plant large-type sunflowers and place the dried heads outside in the winter to provide a food source for these birds.
- Some birds prefer a diet rich in meat protein and suet, a product made from mutton fat or beef fat, will entice these carnivores to your yard. Placed in a suspended wire enclosure, suet will provide tasty meals for woodpeckers, nuthatches, wrens, robins, bluebirds and warblers, according to BirdsForever.com. Sparrows, starlings and thrushes also enjoy suet.
- Fruit makes a nice treat for many birds and they will seek out yards with ample fruit-bearing trees such as mulberry and crab apple. They also enjoy raspberries, blueberries and grapes once the fruit ripens on the vine. When fresh fruit-bearing plants are not in season, dried berries, raisins or small bits of dried apples will keep many birds happy.
- Saving old bread, tearing it into small chunks and allowing it to dry out provides an inexpensive food that is readily accepted by ducks, geese, swans and other birds. Choose breads with natural ingredients, such as whole wheat or rye.
- Provide a dependable water source if you want to attract owls, bluebirds and robins. A birdbath that is filled daily with fresh water will soon become a regular stop for many birds, especially during the winter months when other water sources are frozen and non-migratory birds are looking for a drink. Purple martins often choose a nesting site where water is nearby.
