The Homemade Treat That Will Have Birds Flocking To Your Yard To Enjoy

When birds flock to your yard, your garden benefits more than you might think. From attracting pollinators like hummingbirds to taking out pesky insects, the presence of birds in your yard can bring about a beautiful and vibrant ecosystem. Whether you already have a bird population frequenting your garden and you want them to keep coming back, or you want to begin attracting birds to your garden, there are a few DIY tactics you can try. 

Besides reducing your use of pesticides and adding opportunities for shelter, you can also bring birds to your yard by creating a homemade treat using basic ingredients from your kitchen: Marvel Meal. Some of the best bird foods to keep your feathered friends happy are ingredients that are high in fat and oil. Primarily comprised of fatty ingredients such as peanut butter, lard or vegetable shortening, and sugar, Marvel Meal is an easy recipe to try at home that can attract a wide variety of birds to your yard. 

Animal fats, like suet, are an easy food for birds to metabolize, giving them quick energy. Many types of birds, like chickadees, titmice, jays, and woodpeckers, tend to seek out these types of fatty ingredients, so adding the Marvel Meal mixture to your garden can provide them with the nutrition they need. 

Chances are, you probably already have most, if not all, of the ingredients in your kitchen and pantry to make a Marvel Meal. For a basic recipe, PennState Extension recommends combining 1 cup of peanut butter with 1 cup of vegetable shortening, 4 cups of cornmeal, 1 cup of flour, and an optional sprinkle of sunflower seeds. You can also add suet, which you can find in the meat section of your local grocery store, to the mix, or add in some other seeds birds local to your area enjoy.

While the peanut butter, shortening, seeds, and suet provide much-needed fat for the birds, cornmeal and flour work as binders to keep everything together. Using a spatula or your hands, mix the ingredients together until you have a thick, textured paste. (Note that you should keep cooking fats from your kitchen away from the birds in your yard, including grease.)

To offer this tasty snack to the birds in your backyard, you can freeze the mixture into block shapes and place them on a feeder tray, a suet feeder, or hang them directly from trees in your yard. You can also apply the mixture to the trunk or stump of a tree, or even turn an old whisk into a DIY bird feeder. If you want to try hanging it in your yard, you can use a needle to thread a piece of string, twine, or wire through the solid Marvel Meal block, making it easy to hang from a branch. 

In general, it's recommended to keep this treat in an area with nearby shrubbery, as birds tend to prefer to investigate first from a safe distance. Note that some ingredients, like peanut butter and suet, can eventually spoil, so it's important to keep an eye out for signs of spoilage, like mold or a rancid smell. If you live in a warmer area, where these ingredients melt faster, you may need to switch out your Marvel Meal more frequently. During the winter, when Marvel Meal is frozen, you can leave it out for longer.