Exploring Nature: Birds & Fruit

A birdbath with cool, clean water is one of the best ways to attract birds to your property. Also, birds will flock to seed feeders and hanging suet blocks.

But there is another thing you can offer which might bring a rainbow of birds to your yard.

Fruit. Add an offering of fruit and you could possibly attract yellow warblers, house finches, blue buntings and more. The secret is to serve fruits these birds already recognize.

For example, oranges attract fruit-loving birds such as orioles, tanagers, grosbeaks and thrashers. Just slice an ordinary orange in half and place it on a flat feeding surface. Or you can try nailing the orange directly on to a large tree.

Bananas will also work. Hang a small bunch of partly peeled bananas from a metal shepherd’s hook or set a peeled banana on a tray feeder to attract scarlet tanagers, summer tanagers, orioles, vireos and wood thrushes.

Grapefruit, tangerines and even lemons will also find takers. Finches and wrens go for ripe, juicy pears, as will woodpeckers. One lady in Florida had great luck with mangoes and papayas.

I’m told once you’ve put out fruit for your avian visitors, they will remember your place and show up year after year expecting treats, much like hummingbirds that show up each spring for sugar water at nectar feeders.

So why not be adventuresome? Give fruit a try and see what shows up.

Good luck.