Our bird feeder filled with sunflower hears has been busier than the Kohrs Ice Cream Store on a “Nickel A Cone Day.”
Birds of all shapes and sizes have been lined up, ready for their turn at the seeds. That’s because many of them have babies and the one seed baby birds can all eat and digest is a sunflower heart.
Sunflower hearts as commercial bird seed are a fairly recent development, introduced in the early 1990s. The hearts (or chips) providing high energy food for birds. They are a readily accessible delicacy,
Sunflower hearts are sunflower seeds without the husk (the outer shell). Some birds can’t break into the shells because their beaks are not equipped for that unique task.
Therefore, they are easy for all birds to eat. Sunflower hearts are easily digestible even by the smallest of birds and they give them blasts of energy.
Sunflower hearts are packed with oils and protein are and full of nutrition. They are high in protein and have a high calorie count to weight ratio, meaning birds do not need to spend as much time searching for other seeds.
This morning a saw a daddy English Sparrow perched atop our feeder along with his offspring. The adulty sparrow flew to the perch of the feeder when available, picked up a seed, then back to the hungry baby. I have had dozens of different varieties of birds, but notably bluebirds and cardinals. I have one bluebird family in the trees now and three cardinal families. I have been feeding them meal worms, but when I can’t, they fly constantly to the feeder with the sunflower hearts.
Sunflower hearts are a bit more expensive than regular birdseed, but Wal-Mart sells the hearts at $6.48 for a 5.5-pound bag. I go through a couple bags per week, but it’s worth it to see all the different types of birds enjoying the seeds and feeding their new families.