What do Blackbirds eat?

Blackbirds are now the third most common wild bird species in the UK and providing them with the right food could encourage them to nest in your garden. If you are hoping for blackbird residents in your garden there are a few things to consider.

What Do Blackbirds Eat?

Well in truth blackbirds will eat most kinds of wild bird food fromSuet to Sunflower Hearts. However, their absolute favourite has to be insects and fruits. As blackbirds are soft-billed birds, they are likely to damage their beaks by eating hard seeds or seeds with tough husks. Our Premium Softbill Mix is designed perfectly for this very issue. Containing everything a blackbird (or any soft-billed bird i.e. Robins & Thrushes) needs to eat.

What to feed Blackbirds:

- Peanut Grains
- Rolled Oats
- Insects
 - Sunflower Hearts
- Raisins
- Suet Pellets

We have made our own wild bird food mix especially for blackbirds, containing all their favourite foods. Of course, you can feed them any of the straights listed above but a mix is best, as it provides birds a well-rounded diet containing every food group they need to survive.

We have also got a Dog-Friendly Ground Mix option too, which does NOT have raisins in it, so that even if your pooch goes sniffing, then they won't be at risk if eaten.

How To Feed Blackbirds

If you only provide bird food from hanging feeders in your garden it is very unlikely that any of the food you have provided is being enjoyed by blackbirds. This is because blackbirds are too big to use the majority of hanging seed feeders and they do not possess the ability to cling to feeders, a trait that is exhibited by many smaller birds. The best food for blackbirds is a food that can be fed from a bird table or straight from the floor. This kind of food is readily available, providing it could also lead to an influx of ground-feeding birds such as chaffinches and robins visiting your garden. Providing bird food from the ground in an open area could attract some unwanted visitors such as crows too, this can be avoided by providing the food beneath bushes and shrubs. This favours the blackbirds’ instincts to forage around in the undergrowth for food whereas crows are more interested in an easy meal.

Don't Forget!

The contents of the food you provide are also important, feeding a seed mix that is more suitable for use in feeders from the ground is not likely to leave any blackbirds enamoured with your garden. The contents of feeder mixes are not something that blackbirds are generally interested in eating, many of the harder seeds these mixes contain are not even a viable source of food for blackbirds.Therefore we would recommend something like our ultimate ground mix. Containing fruit, mealworms and suet pellets our ultimate ground mix is designed specifically for feeding from the ground. It contains a selection of treats any ground feeding softbill birds will adore.

So if you are hoping to have a resident blackbird family in your garden there are a few things to remember:

- They like to eat from either the ground or a bird table, preferably in a sheltered area.
- They will only be interested in food that is soft enough for them to eat.
- Providing dried fruit is a sure-fire way to get blackbirds to make their first garden visit.