by Calvor Palmateer of For Wild Birds and Gardeners (Victoria, BC)
Starting with our best advise: "Do not feed seed mixes."
Many mixes contain large quantities of inexpensive seeds eaten by few birds. One of the most common mixes sold in grocery and hardware stores is 90% millet and 10% black-oil sunflower. One of the most common feeder species, the House Finch, does not eat millet. These birds will throw out millet looking for the black-oil sunflower. The large quantities of millet attract House Sparrows (a less desirable species). Ground-feeding birds do like millet but generally cannot consume the seed...[READ MORE]