A good understanding of the foods birds eat can help bring them closer to us. Birds help add life to the trees in your backyard, put some natural sounds into your surroundings, and just make you feel close to nature. Different types of birds eat different types of food.
If you can figure out what types of food the birds are eating in your place, you could use these foods to get them to come to your place. These are the types of birds according to the food they eat:
fans
Lively birds are simply birds of prey; They eat other birds in order to live. These birds, which include hawks, falcons, and ravens, are characterized by their strong wings, feet, and talons. They are agile fliers that chase smaller birds and grab smaller ones in their talons.
carnivores
These are birds of prey. They love to eat meat, but do not eat other birds. Most of their diets include rodents, small mammals, fish, snakes, and frogs. Carnivorous birds include eagles, owls, hawks, and great hawks.
frugivorous
Frugivores are the typical frugivores that we usually see in the forests or near our farms. These sweetly colored avian friends are our feathered planters. They work to spread the seeds of the plants throughout the forest. These birds, which include orioles, robins, plantains, parrots, and blue jays, love apples, berries, plums, raisins, bananas, and other fruits. By the way, some bats eat fruit, but they are not birds; they are mammals.
granivores
Granivores are birds that make cereals as their main food. Many birds belong to this category. They are the ones that are easy to lure in our backyards, if we only know what to lure them with. Examples of granivores include doves, sparrows, finches, parakeets, cardinals, and doves.
insectivorous
Insectivorous birds also rely on meat for their diet, but this time they feed on insects. Most insectivores are small, but these birds do a lot to help farmers and gardeners. They help control the population of pests that destroy plants. These avian friends of ours include phoebes, bluebirds, warblers, woodpeckers, and song sparrows. Many birds that are not naturally insectivorous hunt insects to feed their young.
It is unfortunate that when farmers spray their plants with insecticides, they also destroy the birds that eat the dead insects. It is one of the main reasons why insectivorous birds are disappearing today.
molluscivores
Molluscivores are shorebirds that feed on snails, oysters, and slugs. Many molluscivores converge on the seashore at low tide to hunt for clams and oysters. Other birds of this type prefer to stay in the swamps to find their favorite food.
nivores
These birds feed on the nectar of flowers. They help in cross-pollination of flowers so that they develop and produce seeds. This is a symbiotic relationship that allows plants and birds to thrive together. Some of the better known insects include honey eaters, hummingbirds, honey nuthatches, sun birds, and spider hunters.
Ophiophagous birds
Ophiophagous birds are feathered creatures that feed on snakes. There are only a few species of birds that include snakes as part of their main diet. These include the secretary bird, snake eagles, and some hawks and herons.
palinivores
Palinivores are birds that eat pollen. There aren’t many birds that are strictly pollen eaters. But many insectivores and nectarivores consume pollen when they feed.
fish eaters
Piscivores are birds that dive or dive into the water to catch fish with their specialized bills or strong talons. Some examples of piscivores include kingfishers, ospreys, gulls, and cormorants.
