WILD BIRD SEED

Our wild bird seed selection:

Black oil

This seed is nutritious and high in oil, attracting a wide variety of birds! Cardinals, chickadees, finches, jays, nuthatches, tufted titmice, woodpeckers, and mourning doves will visit for this seed!

Hulled Sunflower hearts

Sunflower hearts are a great no-mess alternative. This seed is easy for birds to eat and provides plenty of protein during the winter months. A favorite of all our feeder birds!

Peanut Splits

Peanut splits are a great alternative to suet cakes and are a favorite of tufted titmice, blue jays, brown thrashers, cardinals, and woodpeckers. Avoid putting out large quantities at once, as peanut splits will spoil if they get wet.

Safflower

If you have a feeder that cannot be squirrel-proofed, try offering safflower seed. Songbirds find it delicious, but squirrels avoid it due to its bitter taste and tough outer shell. Grackles and starlings usually avoid safflower!

White Proso Millet

Millet is a favorite among ground-feeders like chipping sparrows, buntings, doves, and cardinals. Best used on tray or ground feeders.

Nyjer/Thistle

Nyjer seed feeds our migratory goldfinches! A special feeder is needed for this small seed, so get either a thistle sock or mesh tube.

Medium Cracked Corn

Cracked corn attracts a wide variety of ground-feeding birds, including doves, jays, sparrows, cardinals, juncos, quail, turkeys, crows, red-winged blackbirds, and woodpeckers. It’s ideal for tray or ground feeders, but watch out for squirrels and starlings, which also love it. Always keep cracked corn dry to prevent mold.

Native Nurseries custom blend

We use this blend on a large flat rock in our bird garden. It contains black oil sunflower, white proso millet, and medium cracked corn. Mourning doves and Eastern towhees especially enjoy the millet and corn. Every so often, you may also be treated to the company of an indigo bunting or brown thrasher feeding on the white millet.

Supreme blend

Native Nurseries uses this blend in our tube feeder! This mix of black oil sunflower, hulled sunflower hearts, and safflower attracts the usual chickadees, tufted titmice, and cardinals, and also draws in birds that can’t open sunflower shells, such as Carolina wrens.

Millet mix

A good blend that attracts all who eat sunflower and white proso millet. Best used on tray or ground feeders.

No Mess mix

This premium no-waste mix, perfect for attracting a wide variety of songbirds. Provide balanced, year-round nutrition with added vitamins, minerals, and electrolytes. This blend contains sunflower hearts, peanuts, raisins, cracked corn, and pumpkin seeds. Use on platform feeders or feeders with large ports to accommodate the bigger pieces of nuts and fruit.

Fruit and berry

Give songbirds and woodpeckers an extra boost of energy and electrolytes with this mix. This blend includes peanuts, safflower, black oil sunflower, sunflower hearts, dried raisins, and cranberries. Use on platform feeders or feeders with large ports to accommodate the bigger pieces of nuts and fruit.

Bugs, nuts & fruit

Dried mealworms are a protein-rich treat for your birds and provide naturally occurring organic nutrients. This blend of sunflower hearts, tree nuts, peanuts, raisins, cranberries, and dried mealworms are best served in hopper or platform feeders.

Specialties:

Live Mealworms

Mealworms attract many different birds to your purpose-built mealworm feeder, where they come looking for a special treat. Don’t be surprised if the bluebirds and wrens clean out your feeder multiple times a day!

homemade Suet cakes

There are many fancy suet cakes on the market, but none are as well-suited or as preferred as those made fresh (sometimes almost daily) here at Native Nurseries. We use the recipe of the late Betty Komarek of Birdsong Nature Center – simply melted beef fat combined with lots of coarse cornmeal. We buy our cornmeal from a local source, Bradley’s Country Store. This is a nutritious blend and highly attractive to a wide variety of birds – orioles, warblers, wrens, woodpeckers, and many others.