Some 50 million Americans put out more than 1 billion pounds of wild bird food each year in an assortment of backyard feeders to attract birds, according to the American Bird Conservancy. The vast majority of the bird chow consists of seeds.
That is all well and good for attracting the usual queue of birds -- cardinals, chickadees, goldfinches, house finches, nuthatches, titmice and other seed eaters.
Many other common songbird species, though, rarely if ever show up at seed feeders. That's because they primarily eat fruit and have little interest in seeds, though there are exceptions such as the cardinal, which will eat seeds and fruit.
If you want to attract a wider variety of birds to your yard, consider putting out fruit. Many birding supply stores sell specially designed fruit feeders. Fruit also can be offered in hanging feeders, on platform feeders or in wire feeders (similar to suet feeders) to attract birds.
Raisins placed on a platform feeder, for instance, may bring in bluebirds, catbirds and mockingbirds. Grapes cut in half and offered on a platform feeder may lure blue jays, catbirds, mockingbirds, robins, scarlet tanagers and towhees. Orange halves placed in a fruit feeder may attract blue jays, brown thrashers, catbirds, orchard orioles, red-bellied woodpeckers and scarlet tanagers.
You can devise your own simple fruit feeders for the birds. Some folks I know simply hammer some nails into a piece of wood, stick it upright in the ground and hang fruit on the nails. A friend in Athens attracts tanagers to his backyard deck by simply placing fruit in a dish and letting it sit on the railing for the birds to dine at their leisure.
Other fruits that appeal to the birds include apples, bananas, blueberries, cranberries, currants, peaches and strawberries. Some birds also may find dried apples and figs delectable. In addition, just like fruit, jelly is a sweet treat for many birds. Both apple and grape jelly can be used to attract catbirds, orioles, robins and woodpeckers.
If you decide to offer fruit to the birds, locate the fruit feeders away from the seed feeders and suet feeders to give the fruit eaters their own territory. Chop the fruit into smaller bite sizes to make it more edible for the birds.
One other bit of advice: Keep the fruit fresh, and, as with any type of bird feeder, keep your fruit feeders clean.
In the sky: The moon will be first quarter on Tuesday, rising out of the east around lunchtime and setting in the west around midnight, said David Dundee, a Tellus Science Museum astronomer. Mercury is low in the west just after dark. Mars is high in the south just after dark and sets in the west after midnight. It will appear near the moon Tuesday evening. Jupiter is low in the east just before sunrise. Saturn is high in the east at dark and is visible throughout most of the night. It will appear near the moon Wednesday night. Venus is too close to the sun for easy observation this month.
