Sprinkle This One Seed In Your Garden To Attract Different Bird Types

A garden full of colorful birds and cheery bird songs isn't just more lively than an avian-free yard, it's also healthier. Birds can help your garden by devouring insects that would otherwise go after your prized crops. They also often eat weed seeds that could grow into annoying plants. One easy way to help encourage birds to visit is to sprinkle sunflower seeds in your garden.

Sunflower seeds are a favorite snack of many different birds, including mourning doves, chickadees, and goldfinches. While some sunflower loving birds are happy eating from a feeder, others, including juncos and jays, prefer to eat directly off the ground. Sprinkling sunflower seeds in your garden will help encourage them to forage through the plants for these tasty treats.

You can also try planting some of the sunflower seeds instead of just sprinkling them on the surface. While a few of the seeds will likely still be found and enjoyed by the birds, others will grow into sunflowers and provide even more seeds for your feathered friends to enjoy later in the season. Sunflower seeds are easy to grow, provided you plant them after your last frost and make sure they are in a sunny spot. 

What kind of sunflower seeds you opt to sprinkle in your garden can help determine what birds will come by to enjoy them. Striped sunflower seeds are a favorite of jays and cardinals. Meanwhile, black oil sunflower seeds are a great way to attract more songbirds to your garden, and they're a hit with many other species, including chickadees and and finches. Black oil seeds are also generally easier for birds to open, though, and offer more nutrition. Even if you want to plant a few of the seeds, you can still use sunflower seeds sold as bird food. These are generally quite affordable and should still sprout in most cases. 

Scattering sunflower seeds on the ground saves you from having to fill and clean a bird feeder, but it does still come with some potential downsides. Just like a messy bird feeder could be attracting snakes to your garden, so too could scattering bird seeds. You could end up attracting other animals like mice, which then attract predators like coyotes.