Can wild birds eat dried fruit
Certainly makes a change from the usual seeds, nuts or suet, as dried fruits can open up an new dynamic when feeding birds in the yard.
Birds can eat dried fruits with many backyard birds feeding on berries in the wild or eat up cultivated small fruits, with an annoyance to farmers. Dried fruits then will be an attractive prospect to these fruit eating birds all year round. Feed them raisins, current or apricots, with an option for dried apples or oranges.
You can have a lot of fun while feeding dried fruits to birds, as it can make a change from the usual bird food, but remains quite a popular food for common backyard birds.
Best fruits you can offer to wild birds is always the reliable raisins, with any currents or apricots thrown in going down well with many.
Dried oranges can tempt Orioles to feed on them however difficult that may be, with many other bird species still eating the popular options such as raisins while leaving oranges.
Never use dried fruits that use salt to create the dryness, with natural dried fruits with no added sugar only - as salt is toxic to birds in a high quantity.
Birds can eat dried fruits just as they are, with an idea to soften them up in warm water to make it easier for birds to ingest. Dried fruits tend to not be choking hazards to adult birds yet there's the possibility parenting birds will feed their young with dried fruits.
Your favorite backyards are probably fruit eating birds, and its fruit eating birds that will eat dried fruits only.
Enjoy your experience when feeding birds dried fruits, as it can be interesting to see what they like most or what is avoided.
Open up your dried fruit basket to all birds by laying them out in the open, on top of an open platform bird feeder and also low too the ground, on an ground bird feeder.
Birds can eat dried fruit
I can tell you now there's no shortage of common backyard birds who will quite happily feed on many different kinds of dried fruits.
Birds who can eat dried fruits are those that only eat fruit in the wild, thus can be attracted to fruit in dry form. While fruits not available to them in the wild can be offered in dried form, with great success.
Wild birds can eat dried fruits if you can at least offer some fresh fruits in the meantime, including oranges, apples, strawberries and if you like, a banana.
If you have trouble attracting birds to you dried fruit pile, these colorful fruits will do it.
As wild birds can eat dried fruits you can expect many birds belonging to one species to eat one kind more than another.
Whereas many dried fruit varieties can be tried to give you an idea what works best in your yard.
Feed birds dried raisins more than anything else, with currents, apricot, orange, cherries, mango, figs and perches... with many others an option for you.
Focus your efforts on raisins as its more widely available in-store, yet goes down well with more common birds.
Dried fruits to offer birds
Like I've said you must prioritize offering dried raisins to wild birds as its more readily available, cheap yet goes down a treat.
And as wild birds in your yard are likely to be berry eating birds, you'd need to focus on dried fruits in the berry family.
Orioles can be tempted to eat dried hackberries as they eat this in the wild, while you can try and offer Orioles fresh fig.
Whereas as American Robins feed on fruit for 60% of the year, thus all dried berries can be tried for Robins - including raspberries, strawberries, blackberries and blueberries.
Among the raisins or currents, which taste the same to me with no taste buds in birds, they should go down a treat with many birds.
Something more exotic like dried apricot, oranges or other citrus fruit can be offered, and may go down well with any fruit eating birds.
Birds can eat fruits mostly in the wintertime, and to help these fruits go down well in summer, you can soak them in warm water to plump them up with more juices to allow birds to hydrate with now a soft, once dried fruit.
Backyard birds too eat dried kind
No shortage of wild birds who eat fruits in the wild, or more specifically berries, thus wild birds can be seen to eat dried fruits in your yard in great numbers.
Be aware some bird species who feed on fruits do so at an elevated point, thus are not common ground eating birds - nor can they be persuaded to eat off the ground. You'd then have to offer dried fruits on a higher up platform, as well as on the ground.
Ground fruit eating birds can be Northern Cardinals, Blackbirds, Wren's, Grackles, Dark-Eyed Junco, Bluebirds, Robins, Starlings, Catbirds and Finches.
Bird species who may only feed on fruit higher up on a ground platform bird feeder can be: Orioles, Chickadees, Warblers, Goldfinches, Grosbeak, Pine Siskin, Nuthatches, Steller's Jay, Turfed Titmice and the Woodpecker family.
Fruits can be offered all year round with wintertime a priority, summer fruits exist of course with an option to introduce moisture to dried fruits.
Fruit eating birds commonly found in your yard will be willing to eat fruits if accessible.
Which means never add dried fruits in a self-contained hanging bird feeder, when birds are only going to eat fruits on an open top platform bird feeder on a pole, one that hangs or is close to the ground.
Ground feeding birds will eat dried fruits off a ground platform bird feeder, which is a more hygienic way of feeding fruits to birds than throwing them over the ground.
Re-hydration possible
When in summertime it can be a lot of fun to experiment with your dried fruit options, though to continue to feed only dried fruit, along with fresh fruits is vital.
What you can do in summer is offer a great way for wild birds to receive more intake of water, by soaking dried fruits in clear water only.
Benefit to soaking dried fruits is to re-introduce moisture, in which wild birds are going to appreciate when experiencing a drought in the midst of summer, or their natural water sources have dried up.
Dried fruits can be submerged in a bowl of warm clean tap water, and within ten minutes or so the moisture would have soaked in.
You'll know when as any dried fruit will appear to plump up, while feeling soft to touch.
To offer wild birds in your yard now juicy dried fruits, the clock starts. Its now up to you to feed birds these soaked dried fruits as quickly as you can, as the moisture can rapidly speed up the germination process.
By adding moisture to dried fruits again can benefit us as the flavor is enhanced, whereas birds don't really have taste buds to appreciate these flavors.
Where most birds will benefit from re-hydrating dried fruits of any kind, is that they are now much softer, thus are easier to ingest by any birds who eat them out of your yard.
One way to offer dried fruit
Before I go on, I can tell you now to never ever add dried fruits to a bird feeder, as bird feeders are not made for fruit - nor are most birds willing to feed on fruit this way.
It will be a very odd way to feed birds dried fruit in a feeder, with birds letting you know this by them not even touching the hard to reach fruit in feeders.
What will happen is the dried fruit will become stuck, while congealed into a sticky ball where birds can't eat - and you'd find it hard to remove.
Fruit of any kind must be out in the open as this is how most common backyard fruit eating birds feed in the wild. Birds will eat fruit on top of an open platform surface, out of a dish or on a ground bird feeder.
Dried fruit will rot trapped inside a bird feeder of any kind if you attempt to do so.
Rot will set in and so will bacteria begin to quickly germinate within what would be a hot, enclosed bird feeder - which is why fruit lasts longer out in the open - while fed to birds in the shade.
Conclusion
Wild birds can and will eat dried fruits with many, many common backyard birds seen to feed off many types of dried fruits.
Best dried fruit to offer birds is raisins which are a long tried and tested dried fruit, with all kinds of berries in dry form including strawberries, blackcurrants and blueberries to feed fruit eating birds in the yard.
Ground eating birds that can eat dried fruits of any kind can be Cardinals, Blackbirds, Wren's, Grackles, Bluebirds, Robins and Finches.
Birds who will only eat off the ground on a pole mounted platform feeder will be any one of Chickadees, Warblers, Nuthatches, Turfed Titmice and Woodpeckers.
Never attempt to insert dried fruit in a bird feeder as it simply won't be eaten.
Birds will eat dried fruit on the ground on if laid out on a surface around the yard. Birds come to bird feeders for seeds, nuts or suet - so it will be odd for them to come across dried fruit within a feeder.
Besides that sticky dried fruit will be seen to germinate quickly while inside a bird feeder.
Re-hydrating dried fruits for the summer is an option to soften them up, which will make it easier for even more birds to feed on them.
Birds do eat dried fruit in the yard but you may have to try different kinds, as a variety of birds only feed on certain fruits in the wild, and therefore its dried fruit counterpart.
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