Knowing what to feed your garden visitors is a sure-fire way of attracting all of your favourite birds. With such a wide variety of kitchen scraps to feed them, it is handy to know which healthy treats we should share with the birds.
If your house is anything like ours, there are always a few grapes left on the bunch that go to waste. This led me to think; do birds eat grapes?
I wondered if they were safe to hang out for the birds, and which of my feathered friends might delight in them.
Just as grapes are a good sources of vitamins in humans, so are they in birds.
Many wild birds will occasionally enjoy nibbling on a grape and aren’t too fussy where they find it. They will eat grapes from bird tables, feeders, walls, or from the ground.
Although grapes aren’t usually their favourite food, if there is nothing else available, expect the birds to nibble away happily.
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Which birds eat grapes?
The blackbird is the exception to the rule. They adore grapes and must be the bane of any British vineyard owner’s life! They prefer a ripe grape so it must be a race against time to harvest the vines.
Anywhere that grapes grow will attract blackbirds, whether that is in the wild or in the garden.
Starlings behave similarly, and strip them from the vines or bird tables.
Both blue tits and coal tits enjoy grapes but will always choose peanuts first, if they’re on offer of course.
How to Feed Grapes in the Garden
Birds usually have no preference over the colour of grapes, they will eat either red or white. They enjoy the juicy, refreshing taste, and like to have them whole. Halving one may attract the bird initially, but will encourage it to rot very quickly.
Remove them from the stalk and wash the grapes. Only put a few out at a time, especially in hot whether, as they spoil very quickly. It is easy to add extras if the first batch gets eaten quickly.
If you don’t have a feeding table, try hanging grapes in a peanut feeder. The wire mesh makes the grapes easily accessible for most birds. You can scatter some on the ground for the ground-feeding birds, but remember,grapes can be toxic to to dogs, please beware your pup doesn’t come to any harm.
Most garden birds will have a sniff around the grapes but leave them if there are well-stocked feeders around. I suggest only putting out grapes when there is nothing else on offer. That way the bird will receive a healthy and nutritional treat that might also quench his thirst.
Finally
Soft fruits are an acceptable, nutritional snack for birds, particularly in the autumn when most are plump and readily available.
Offering grapes in the garden as part of your bird-feeding regime is the ideal way to introduce new flavour to their diet whilst reducing your food waste naturally.
As fast as I put the grapes out, my blackbird and his wife devour them. The male will often sit on the fence by my backdoor and call me if there are none in the garden. He then jumps a long the fence with me as I go to load up his feeding table. At the moment he calls me about 5 or 6 times a day if the table is empty. He gets through at least 4 punits a week at the moment. I have tried including worms in with the grapes, but he just screams at me and flies off in disgust. Obviously they have a nest full of young at the moment as he has taken to stabbing a beak full at a time, after he has eaten.
Hi, thank you for this advice, as I did not know about Grape feeding for Blackbirds. They make their homes in different countries, including here in Southern Spain. I think they are one of the more friendly birds.
We must all look after our wildlife and, of course, our birds