Attracting Cardinals Is A Breeze When You Add This Simple Ingredient To Your Feeder

If you love birdwatching, then you might be on the hunt for more native birds that you can attract to your yard. Vibrant red or yellow cardinals are always an exciting bird to spot — and there's a surprisingly easy way that you can convince them to return to your yard again and again. The secret? Nothing more than black oil sunflower seeds.

Though cardinals love other kinds of sunflower seeds, too, black oil sunflower seeds are your best bet for encouraging cardinals to nest in your yard. They come from a particular strain of sunflower (Helianthus annuus). These seeds have a higher oil content than your average sunflower seed. Because of this, they're also higher in fat; this means that birds get more benefit from eating black oil sunflower seeds when compared to other varieties. Black oil sunflower seeds even have more vitamins and nutrients that are good for any wild cardinal's diet. As another bonus, they're also a lot easier for small birds like cardinals to crack open than, say, striped sunflower seeds. 

One problem that anyone who has a bird feeder filled with sunflower seeds will undoubtedly run into is the fact that when birds eat the sunflower seeds, they crack open the shells and dispose of them on the ground. This means that you'll soon have an enormous pile of sunflower seeds scattered around your bird feeder — not exactly an attractive look, especially if your bird feeder is near your deck or patio. 

To prevent this, you can look for shelled sunflower seeds rather than whole ones; unfortunately, these can be difficult to find with black oil sunflower seeds, since they're primarily eaten by birds and not humans. You can always place a small drop cloth, bucket, or basket beneath your bird feeder to make the sunflower shells easier to dispose of; or, you could try shelling them yourself, too.

One handy option for shelling your seeds, especially if you grow your own sunflowers to use for your feeder, is to soak them in water for an hour or two before attempting to open them; this will help you pop open shells effortlessly, making it easy to open shells in large batches for your feeder. You could also try rolling a rolling pin across a tray full of sunflower seeds, which should crack each seed open for easy access. Black oil sunflower seeds have thin shells, which makes them easy to crack. But they tend to be physically smaller than striped seeds, which can make them harder to open strictly by hand.

One question you might have is whether you should add other kinds of seeds, or only use one sort of seed in your bird feeder. The answer depends on the types of birds you're trying to attract. Black oil sunflower seeds are beloved by many types of birds, not just cardinals, but some birdwatchers believe that these seeds can be too tough for smaller birds to crack open. This may inhibit certain types of birds that visit your feeder, such as sparrows, for example. 

If you're more interested in easily attracting cardinals to your yard alongside a lot of other birds, then feel free to mix your black oil sunflower seeds into your regular bird seed mix. This can be much less expensive than filling your bird feeder exclusively with black oil sunflower seeds. You can also purchase bird seed mix that comes with shelled black oil sunflowers in it, another way to cut down on the cost of purchasing shelled black oil sunflower seeds. You could also look for cardinal-specific birdseed mix that has other seeds besides black oil sunflower seeds, as these could potentially increase the number of cardinals that visit your yard.

Cardinals also tend to enjoy small berries and cracked corn. These seeds could help attract pickier or smaller birds that aren't eating many sunflower seeds. You may want to look into adding these items to your black oil sunflower seed mix if you're interested in attracting cardinals alongside other, smaller birds.