Bird Eating Behavior
Observing when and how birds eat is the first step to learning more about their eating habits and digestion. Birds are most active foraging in the morning and evening as they refuel after a long night and stock up for the next night, but they will eat at any time of day. To understand bird digestion, watch birds eating different foods and observe their behavior before, during, and after a meal.
How active are feeding areas at different times of the day?Which foods are the most popular and which are least popular?Do birds take small bites, break food apart, or eat it whole?How quickly does a bird take multiple bites?Does the bird stay at the feeder or fly away between bites?Does the bird hide any food or consume it all at once?After eating, is the bird active immediately or does it rest?
Careful observation will show how birds treat their food as they eat and how their bodies react while digesting.
How Birds Digest Their Food
Digestion is a multistep process that begins with finding food and ends when indigestible waste is expelled from the bird’s body. The time it takes a bird to digest a meal depends on several factors, including the type of food and the bird species eating it. While the general digestive tract is the same for all birds, the size and shape of different organs, particularly the crop and gizzard, also vary for different bird species.
Helping Bird Digestion
A bird’s digestive tract is designed to efficiently extract as much nutrition as possible from everything and anything a bird eats, but some foods are more easily digested than others. The most nutritious foods are the ones birds need most, and birders should avoid offering junk foods such as bread, excessive scraps, or spoiled food. To help birds enjoy a nutritious diet they can easily digest:
Offer many different foods to give birds a greater variety of healthy choices, including both feeders and natural foods from trees and shrubs. Offer foods in different sizes, such as whole black oil sunflower seeds and peanuts alongside hulled seeds, hearts, or chips and peanut butter for different birds to sample. Clean bird feeders regularly and check to be sure no seed is spoiled, discarding any wet, moldy, or mildewed seeds and removing spent seed hulls.
Understanding bird digestion is a great step toward offering only the best foods for birds to eat and keeping them healthy and well-fed.
