Wild Foods -- Fruits and Other Treats

There's a flash of color outside the living room window. It's the male goldfinch, bright as a buttercup, resplendent in his breeding plumage, breakfasting at the thistle feeder. Politely waiting his turn in our mulberry tree is the male house finch, who seems a bit embarrassed by his more modest outfit of rose and brown. The grackle invasion is over since we started putting out our spring foods and our faithful "yard birds" - finches, jays, sparrows, cardinals, mockingbird, and doves are still with us. Patient Mama Starling hunts bugs in peace now that the bigger and more aggressive birds are gone. We enjoyed the seeing the redwing blackbirds (and Bruce enjoyed the antics of the grackles) - but now that the spring nesting season is here and there's available food for them, it was time for these messy birds to move on. So we changed our feeding mixes to specialty foods that our favorite birds liked and the bossy black birds found other parts to call home.

Our spring bird food mix is a blend of specialty foods -- thistle, peanuts in the shell, a birdseed low in millet, and -- apples. The little doves (perhaps too pigeon-brained to care) came out of habit, but the survivalist-oriented grackles and blackbirds were convinced that our bountiful supply of goodies was at an end, went away. Now the fruit and thistle eaters have their chance, and they're making the most of it. One of the most interesting foods for your yard is fruit - apples, raisins, grapes, oranges, and even grapefruit. Just about any sort of fruit that humans enjoy is something that birds like, too. Various other kinds of wildlife will also come into your yard to nibble on juicy berries. Here in Texas, our guests seem to prefer mulberries and apples, though other wildscapers report that their wild friends like the other fruits on the list. At Arenal Lodge in Costa Rica, the staff set the leftover fruit from breakfast -- mangos, plantains, melon rinds, bananas, and apples -- on a high platform for their feathered residents to enjoy - one of the strategies that makes Arenal Lodge a renowned birding spot.

There's a number of creatures around the world that enjoys a good meal of fruit: A partial list includes:

parrots catbirds orioles grosbeaks and other large finches thrushes tanagers mice (prefer nuts and seeds but will eat fruit) squirrels (but they'd rather have nuts and seeds) coatimundis monkeys raccoons bears (though you might not want to wildscape for bears unless you have a LOT of land!)

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