Throughout the last eight years, Joseph Hahs has led the property management and construction firm Cork, LLC, in St. Paul, MN. An active member of his MN community, Joseph Hahs supports the Nongame Wildlife Fund with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
Through Minnesota DNR’s Ecological and Water Resources department, the Nongame Wildlife Program aims to protect and maintain the lives of more than 700 species of wildlife each year. The program offers a variety of educational resources, including tips for feeding local birds.
Providing food to the birds in your community is an excellent way to safeguard their populations while helping you enjoy diverse species up close. There are several different types of bird feeders, including shelf, wooden, or hummingbird feeders. You should place your feeders at various height levels for different bird species. For example, mourning doves prefer their feeders to be on the ground, while goldfinches enjoy hanging feeders.
There are several types of food that you can provide to your local birds. Panicum miliaceum, commonly called white proso millet, provides a large amount of protein, and black-oil sunflower seeds have a high fat content that raises energy levels. You can attract certain bird species using specific types of feed, such as peanut hearts for starlings and safflowers seeds for cardinals.
