| 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. | |||
 | Mountain chickadee
Chestnut-backed chickadee | 97-100% Animal food: Caterpillars, spiders, aphids, beetles, ants and other Hymenoptera
Plant food: Conifer Seeds | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Plain titmouse | 70% Animal food: Caterpillars from more than half of the animal diet, wasps, make up a large portion, and the balance consists of scale insects, ants, beetles and spiders.
Plant food: Oak, Cherry | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Bushtit | 80% Animal food: Various small insects and arachnids obtained on the foliage or twigs of woody plants. Prominent items are aphids, beetles, caterpillars, scale insects, mealybugs, leafhoppers, treehoppers, true bugs, spiders and pseudoscorpions.
Plant food: Galls and leaf galls | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Rock wren | Animal food: Almost entirely small insects and spiders.
Plant food: Virtually none. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Canyon wren | Animal food: Climbs over, under and around rocks searching for insects and spiders.
Plant food: Almost none. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Bewick's wren | 97% Animal food: Mostly forages on ground, limbs of trees, leaves of bushes. mostly insects, boll weevils, beetles, black olive scales, leaf bugs, stink bugs, leafhoppers, treehoppers, ants, wasps, caterpillars, moths, grasshoppers, also spiders.
Plant food: Almost none. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| House wren | Animal food: Eats almost entirely insects -grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, caterpillars of gypsy moth and of cabbage white butterfly, ants, bees, wasps, flies, bugs, ticks, aphids, spiders, some millipedes, snails.
Plant food: Almost none. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Winter wren | Animal food: Almost entirely insectivorous. Bark beetles, weevils, round-headed wood borers, leaf beetles, aphids, lace bugs, moths of spruce budworm, ants, sawflies, caterpillars, also spiders.
Plant food: red cedar berries. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Marsh wren | Animal food: Eats bugs, weevils, beetles, moths, caterpillars, ants, grasshoppers, crickets, mosquitoes, also spiders.
Plant food: Virtually none. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| Western bluebird
Mountain bluebird | 60-90% Animal food: Beetles, particularly ground beetles, May beetles, and weevils, grasshoppers and crickets, and caterpillars. Various other insects and spiders, centipedes, sowbugs, and snails are also eaten.
Plant food: Fleshy Fruits | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available. |
| American pipit | Animal food: Beetles, caterpillars, flies and their larvae, grasshoppers and crickets, ants and other Hymenoptera, spiders, bugs, millipedes, and crustaceans.
Plant food: None in Spring and Summer, up to 15% Tarweed, Redmaids, Wheat; up to 5% Canarygrass, Chickweed; Trace amounts of Oats, Silene, Knotweed, Clover and Pigweed remainder of year. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms, earthworms and natural food items as available; commercial wild bird seed mix. |
| Solitary vireo | Animal food: Forages deliberately in treetops while feeding, getting most of insect food from twigs and foliage, sometimes flies up into air to catch passing insect; eats large amounts of caterpillars and moths; bugs, especially stink bugs, beetles, bees, wasps, ants, stone flies, dragonflies, grasshoppers, crickets, etc., some spiders.
Plant food: Some fruit: wild grapes, dogwood and viburnum berries, etc. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms, earthworms and natural food items as available |
| Hutton's vireo | Animal food: Spring-Fall, mostly insects, a few spiders
Plant food: some seeds of berries, also plant galls. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms, earthworms and natural food items as available |
| Warbling vireo | Animal food: Eats caterpillars, eggs of moths and butterflies, aphids, beetles, grasshoppers, ants, bugs, scale insects, flies, dragonflies, etc., also some spiders.
Plant food: Some berries | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms, earthworms and natural food items as available |
| Orange-crowned warbler | Animal food: Beetles, bugs, caterpillars, wasps, spiders, grasshoppers, and flies.
Plant food: Pine, Laurel Sumac, Poison-oak, fig, elderberry, grape, pacific waxmyrtle, California peppertree. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available |
| Nashville warbler | Animal food: Forages from ground to treetop but manly low in trees and thickets at edge of forest; eats tent caterpillars, and those of brown-tail and gypsy moths, leafhoppers, aphids, flies, grasshoppers.
Plant food: | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available |
| Yellow warbler | Animal food: Beetles, bugs, caterpillars, wasps, spiders, grasshoppers, and flies.
Plant food: Pine, Laurel Sumac, Poison-oak, fig, elderberry, grape, pacific waxmyrtle, California peppertree. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available |
| Yellow-rumped (Audubon's) warbler | Animal food: Ants, wasps, houseflies, crane flies, gnats (many caught on wing), scale insects, plant lice (aphids), beetles, caterpillars, etc., also spiders.
Plant food: Some berries and seeds | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available |
| Black-throated gray warbler | Animal food: Forages among leaves of trees and bushes for insects, especially fond of oakworms and other green caterpillars; no detailed study made of its diet.
Plant food: | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available |
| Hermit warbler | Animal food: Flits along branches of conifers from trunk out, sometimes hangs from twigs like chickadees; eats beetles, caterpillars, small flying insects, spiders.
Plant food: | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available |
| Macgillivray's warbler | Animal food: Forages close to ground in densest thickets, catches and eats click beetles, flea beetles, caterpillars, and other insects, but no comprehensive study of food has been made.
Plant food: | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available |
| Common yellowthroat | Animal food: Beetles, bugs, caterpillars, wasps, spiders, grasshoppers, and flies.
Plant food: Pine, Laurel Sumac, Poison-oak, fig, elderberry, grape, pacific waxmyrtle, California peppertree. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available |
| Wilson's warbler | Animal food: Beetles, bugs, caterpillars, wasps, spiders, grasshoppers, and flies.
Plant food: Pine, Laurel Sumac, Poison-oak, fig, elderberry, grape, pacific waxmyrtle, California peppertree. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms and natural food items as available |
| Yellow-breasted chat | Animal food: Eats largely insects -grasshoppers, beetles, bugs, ants, weevils, bees, wasps, moths, mayflies, tent caterpillars, currant "worms".
Plant food: Fond of blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, elderberries, wild grapes. | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms, berries and natural food items as available |
| Hooded oriole
Northern oriole | Animal food: Almost entirely insectivorous: Weevils, stinkbugs, grasshoppers, caterpillars, ants, bees and leafhoppers.
Plant food: Fig, Elderberry, Nightshade | Adult Maintenance Diet plus mealworms, variety of chopped fruits 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: April 17, 1997