| The nutritional requirements for each of the avian species are very diversified. Age, sex, size, activity and reproduction functions also contribute to a variance in nutritional requirements. While a healthy, adult bird can thrive on a balanced maintenance diet, growth, healing, breeding, nesting and molting all require additional nutrients. Small birds need more food for energy than larger birds do, and reproducing females require more nutrients than males do. All natural and captive diets listed in this document are based primarily on the Spring-Summer diet of these birds. During these seasons, almost all avian diets contain a substantially higher percentage of insects (nearly 100% protein) than the remainder of the year. Nearly all baby songbirds are fed a primarily insect diet. | |||
 | Lesser nighthawk | Animal food: Eats various insects caught in low flight near ground. Feeds until about 11am. After dark also feeds in open on ground. eats beetles, moths, grasshoppers, winged ants.
Plant food: none. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus ground beef heart, mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Common nighthawk | Animal food: Sweeps insects out of air at any time of day or night, largely while in flight, either high in air or close to ground. Variety of insects from large moths and beetles to tiny flies and mosquitoes. Enormous quantities of beetles, plant lice, grasshoppers, locusts, horseflies, stable flies, etc. Drinks water while in fight by skimming surface of lakes, streams.
Plant food: none | Adult Maintenance Diet plus ground beef heart, mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Common Poorwill | Animal food: Hunts on or near ground at night, eats insects, mostly night-flying moths, beetles, chinch bugs, also grasshoppers and locusts. Many insects picked up from ground or by leaping from ground into air for them.
Plant food: none | Adult Maintenance Diet plus ground beef heart and mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Black swift
Vaux's swift White-throated swift | Animal food: Caddisflies, may flies, crane and other flies, beetles, wasps, ants, bees and true bugs.
Plant food: none. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Olive-sided flycatcher | Animal food: True flies, mosquitoes, small moths, flying ants and small beetles.
Plant food: None | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Western wood-pewee | Animal food: darts out, catching flying insects: bees , wasps, ants, flies, horseflies, crane flies, robber flies, etc.; also moths, caterpillars, some dragonflies, mayflies, lacewings, termites, spiders.
Plant food: A few wild berries. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Willow flycatcher | Animal food: Catches insects in flight; beetles, aphids, scale insects, bees, wasps, crane flies, robber flies, houseflies, bugs, moths, and caterpillars and grasshoppers.
Plant food: None. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Hammonds' flycatcher | Animal food: Makes short flights to catch beetles, moths, flies, bees and wasps, and other aerial insects, then returns to perch.
Plant food: None. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Dusky flycatcher | Animal food: Moths and other flying insects caught out of air or caught from beneath leaves.
Plant food: none. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Gray flycatcher | Animal food: Small insects; beetles, grasshoppers, moths, wasps.
Plant food: none. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Pac.-slope/cordilleran flycatcher | Animal food: Catches insects in flight; beetles, aphids, scale insects, bees, wasps, crane flies, robber flies, houseflies, bugs, moths, and caterpillars and grasshoppers.
Plant food: None. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Black phoebe | Animal food: swoops downward from perch to catch wild bees, ants, wasps, beetles, plant lice, flies, moths and caterpillars. Sometimes takes small fishes from top of water. Regurgitates pellets.
Plant food: None. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Say's phoebe | Animal food: Wild bees, wasps and ants, flies, crane flies, robber flies, also beetles, bugs, moths, butterflies, crickets, grasshoppers, dragonflies, spiders, millipedes, sow bugs. Regurgitates pellets.
Plant food: some berries. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Ash-throated flycatcher | Animal food: Forages over low shrubbery and flies out into air after insects; insects, especially bees, wasps, ant, robber flies, many bugs, treehoppers, cicadas, caterpillars, moths, grasshoppers, some spiders.
Plant food: Some elderberries, mistletoe berries. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Western kingbird | Animal food: Darts out from perch to catch bees, wasps, beetles, moths, drops to ground to catch caterpillars, grasshoppers, crickets, also eats bugs, millipedes, spiders, occasionally tree frogs.
Plant food: Fruit of elderberry, hawthorns. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Purple martin | 100% Animal food: Beetles, weevils, winged ants, wasps, bees, flies, bugs, moths, and dragonflies. All captured on the wing.
Plant food: None | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Tree swallow | 100% Animal food: Beetles, weevils, winged ants, wasps, bees, flies, bugs, moths, and dragonflies. All captured on the wing.
Plant food: None | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Violet-green swallow | 100% Animal food: Beetles, weevils, winged ants, wasps, bees, flies, bugs, moths, and dragonflies. All captured on the wing.
Plant food: None | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Northern rough-winged swallow | 100% Animal food: Beetles, weevils, winged ants, wasps, bees, flies, bugs, moths, and dragonflies. All captured on the wing.
Plant food: None | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Bank swallow | 100% Animal food: Beetles, weevils, winged ants, wasps, bees, flies, bugs, moths, and dragonflies. All captured on the wing.
Plant food: None | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Cliff swallow | 100% Animal food: Beetles, weevils, winged ants, wasps, bees, flies, bugs, moths, and dragonflies. All captured on the wing.
Plant food: None | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Barn swallow | 100% Animal food: Beetles, weevils, winged ants, wasps, bees, flies, bugs, moths, and dragonflies. All captured on the wing.
Plant food: None | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Golden-crowned kinglet
Ruby-crowned kinglet | Animal food: Almost entirely insectivorous. Insects eaten are principally wasps, bugs, flies, beetles, plant lice, and insect eggs.
Plant food: None in spring and summer, 12% poison-oak and Elderberry Galls in Winter and Fall. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Blue-gray gnatcatcher | Animal food: Entirely insectivorous, generally consisting of flies, gnats, and caddisflies.
Plant food: None | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
RESOURCES:
American Wildlife And Plants: A Guide To Wildlife Food Habits, Martin, Zim And Nelson, Dover Books.
The Birder's Handbook: A Field Guide To The Natural History Of North American Birds, Ehrlich, Dobkin, Wheye, Simon & Schuster.
Brukner Nature Center: Primer Of Wildlife Care And Rehabilitation, Patti L. Raley
The Audobon Society Encyclopedia Of North American Birds, John K. Terres, Wings Books
This page was created, and is maintained by Kelly Jensen kellyj@snowcrest.net
Last update: March 14, 1997