What should i feed cardinals

Every feeder the Cardinals like is taken over by Morning Doves, which crowd out all the other birds—and the voracious eaters love safflower. Any suggestions? Try striped sunflower. It should be too big for doves to eat. Hope that helps! Bird Watching HQ. What are the BEST bird feeders for cardinals to use in my backyard?

But why? See video below. April 16, at pm. Dawn Ordus says:. January 24, at pm. Larry J Robichaud says:. November 25, at pm. Linda Lee says:. July 4, at pm. Bonnie Cryer says:. June 12, at pm. Martha edgin says:. June 5, at pm. Bodie says:. May 21, at pm. Charlotte McLravy says:. May 10, at am. JRiley says:. April 5, at pm. Fred Van Atta says:. November 20, at pm. Pat says:. July 28, at am. Linda Lee Williams says:. To attract Cardinals to your birdbaths, you may consider adding drippers to keep the water moving.

Keep in mind, whichever method you choose, water should be changed, and vessels should be cleaned frequently to prevent algae and dirt buildup. Cardinals live in the same place all year, even during the winter months. To ensure that water is available in freezing temperatures, you should frequently refresh still water or add a heated birdbath.

With that, your yard is sure to be a hotspot for the Cardinals in your area! As mentioned above, Cardinals enjoy secluded areas surrounded by thick foliage with lots of trees and shrubs. Planting trees and bushes of varying heights will help these songbirds to feel safe and protected. Make sure to include evergreen trees and other plants that will be able to provide cover during the sparser winter months as well.

Unlike many other backyard birds, Cardinals will not use birdhouses or nesting boxes. In addition to enjoying dense plant life for shelter, they also prefer it for nesting. Grapevines, tall trees, and shrub thickets are ideal options for nest sites.

Readily available nesting materials are also essential to encouraging long-term Cardinal nesting. Make sure that your yard features pine needles, small twigs, grass clippings, and other materials so that Cardinal visitors will build a nest nearby. There are also a few things you can avoid to make your property safer, ensuring many return visits by your cardinal friends.

Reflective surfaces. Cardinals are known to attack their reflections as a territory-protecting measure. You can prevent this by eliminating the reflection of windows or mirrors near nesting and feeding areas. For windows, try using screens or bird netting to deter them.

Those tiny vertical feeders might be hard for Northern Cardinals to latch onto. They much prefer steady, heavy feeders that will hold their weight. Cardinals switch up their nesting spots frequently.

But they very well may abandon the spot a few weeks later when they have another clutch. And so having a variety of thick shrubs and evergreen trees is important to satisfy the nesting needs of cardinals. You could put out the most elaborative and beautiful bird houses and cardinals will always scoff at it and build a nesting spot for themselves. You can use an empty suet feeder or even place materials on their platform feeders.

So what do cardinals like to eat? Look at the picture of a cardinals beak below. Pay close attention to its design. What do you think their beaks are specialized to eat? If you said cracking open shells to eat the seed inside, then you are correct! Their beaks provide the necessary power and leverage to open up a wide variety of thick and hard seed husks.

This fact is important to know because the two best foods that attract cardinals are sunflower and safflower seeds, both of which have hard shells! Black-oil sunflower: This food is extremely popular and will attract many species of birds, not just cardinals. Striped sunflower : Bigger than Black-oil with a harder husk to crack open. Cardinals have no problem getting to the seed inside, but many other birds do. This seed is a great option to use if you want to attract cardinals but discriminate against other birds.

Unfortunately, almost every other bird species eat sunflowers chips too so cardinals will have more competition at the feeder. Cardinals enjoy safflower and eat it regularly.

But an amazing benefit of safflower is that many other birds ignore it, which leaves more food for cardinals! When I want to see as many cardinals as possible at my feeders, then I typically use a mix of black oil sunflower and safflower seed.

A few other foods that attract cardinals to bird feeders are corn and shelled peanuts. There are thousands of different bird feeders that you can choose from, but cardinals will not use many of them, even if they contain their favorite foods. This is because not all bird feeders are designed to meet the specific needs of Northern Cardinals. Second, they prefer to feed facing forward.