Can Birds Eat Strawberries?

Can birds eat strawberries? Let me guess, you’ve got an excess of fruit you can’t eat. Or perhaps you just want to give your backyard bird a nice fruit treat. The problem is, you’re not quite sure if strawberries are a safe food to offer your backyard birds?

Wild birds can eat fresh strawberries offered at your backyard feeders. Strawberries are full of nutrients which are good for bird health. You can attract a variety of birds with strawberries, but mainly fruit eating birds like finches and orioles. Strawberries don’t need any special preparation as birds naturally eat them directly from the plants.

If you want to know more about offering strawberries at your birdfeeders, then keep reading this guide. You’ll learn the benefits of strawberries for birds, which birds you’ll attract, and the best feeder to use to offer strawberries.

So let’s begin.

Do birds eat strawberries at Feeders?

There are a lot of fruit eating bird that love to eat strawberries.

If you offer them up at your feeders it saves the hassle of needing to raid a nearby strawberry patch.

You may find that a lot of birds may pick up the strawberries and fly off to eat them, rather than eating it at your feeder.

This stops other bird coming along and completing for the strawberries. But also, a lot of birds store food they love in a ‘hiding’ place to come back to later.

What birds eat strawberries?

By offering strawberries at your feeders you’ll attract mainly fruit loving birds. The one bird you’ll be sure to attract id the sweet toothed oriole. Their favourite fruit is oranges but they are partial to a strawberry too.

But orioles aren’t the only bird you’ll find enjoying strawberry at your feeders.

Will Eat Strawberries
  • Orioles
  • Finches
  • Blackbirds
  • Grackles
  • Chickadees
  • Titmice
  • Grosbeaks
  • Thrushes
  • Robins
  • Mockingbirds
  • Thrashers
  • Woodpeckers
  • Wrens
Won’t Eat strawberries
  • Cardinals
  • Sparrows
  • Flycatchers

These are just a few bird your see eating strawberries at your feeders. Strawberries are a pretty popular fruit amongst birds so they’ll be sure to be a hit at your feeders.

Some bird you may not see eating other fruits such as apples, pears or melons are often enjoy berry fruits. That because berries are much smaller and easier for them to eat.

How Are Strawberries Good For Birds?

Bird love to eat strawberries because they are sweet and juicy. What they don’t realise it that they are the perfect way for bird to get lots of nutrients.

Strawberries are full of:

  • Vitamin C
  • Vitamin K
  • Vitamins B1 & B6
  • Potassium
  • Magnesium

Strawberries are also a source of fibre and omega-3 fats for wild birds. Insects such as tiny worms or flies can be found on strawberries, which can boost a bird protein intake.

All these vitamins and nutrients are essential to keep birds healthy and help prevent disease.

Plus with 91% water content, strawberries are a great source of hydration for birds.

Are Strawberries Safe for Birds?

Strawberries are safe for wild birds.

Although it’s important to remember that store bought fruit may have been treated with pesticides. When a bird eats pesticide chemical it can cause internal damage or even death.

For this reason I’d always recommend offering home-grown or organic strawberries to the bird if you can.

If that’s not possible then you should clean your strawberries before offering them at your feeder.

You clean strawberries by soaking the strawberries in a diluted vinegar solution (4 parts water, 1 part vinegar) for 15 minutes. Then thoroughly rinse the strawberries with fresh water.  You can use white vinegar or apple cider vinegar for washing strawberries.

When to Put Out Strawberries for Birds

Having strawberries available at your feeder in spring is a great way to attract a variety of bird to nest nearby.

In summer months be mindful that strawberries at your feeder can attract sweet loving insects such as wasps, and ants.

You can also offer strawberries to birds in winter. Bird have a preference of seed and suet based foods at this time. But, birds such as blackbird and robins will they’ll enjoy a strawberry treat too.

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Parts of the Strawberry bird eat

I often get asked what part of the strawberries are safe for bird to eat. So let’s go through each part and see how safe it is for the birds.

The strawberry flesh

The strawberry flesh is the big red juicy part of the fruit. This is the main bit bird are after as it is sweet and juicy to eat.

The best part is the strawberries are ‘readymade’ for birds. That because they have a soft skin the birds can easily peck through to get into the sweet and juicy inside.

The strawberry flesh is the part that contains all the sugar, nutrients and water for birds, so they get most benefit eating this part.

Can birds eat strawberry seeds?

Strawberry seeds are not toxic to wild birds. You do not need to remove strawberry seeds before offering them at your feeders.

It’s very difficult to eat a strawberry without eating the seeds. That because the tiny seeds are imbedded into the strawberry skin.

This means as bird peck away they will eat the strawberry seeds. And when the bird pop them out they land far away and hopefully great new strawberry plants. Clever huh?

Do birds eat strawberry leaves?

Strawberry leaves (the green top part) are edible and birds will eat them.

In fact this part of the strawberry is really benefit to birds as it contains antioxidants, Vitamin C and fibre in their diet.

If you offer up strawberries at your feeders don’t remove the leaves as they birds will enjoy them just as much.

Can birds eat strawberry flowers?

Bird eat strawberry blossoms and flowers as they contain a lot of nutrients for birds.

If you grow your own strawberries you’ll see that the bird don’t just eat the fruits. Bird can help to prune the strawberry plants and keep insects at bay, but you’ll find they eat most of your fruit too.

PartSafeNutritiousNotes
Strawberry FleshyesyesBest part to offer
Strawberry SeedsyesnoNo need to remove
Strawberry BlossomyesyesMay need to prevent bird eating all the fruit
Strawberry Leaves (Top)yesyesNo need to remove

What type of strawberry is best for birds?

You can offer up any type of strawberries to birds including:

  • Honeoye
  • Earliglow
  • Allstar
  • Jewel
  • Tristar
  • Sparkle
  • Fort Laramie

These strawberries are widely available over the USA. If you can try to choose the sweetest varieties and this is what bird will enjoy. Although they will eat almost any strawberry that isn’t hard or bitter.

How to prep strawberries for birds

Strawberries don’t need much prep for bird feeder unlike other larger fruit such as apples, oranges or melons.

If your strawberries are store bought do soak them in a vinegar solution first. then  rinse thoroughly with fresh water. This will remove most of the pesticide chemical used on the strawberries..

You may want to cut the strawberries in half to expose the fleshy fruit inside. This also makes the strawberries go further as a lot of bird wil fly off with a whole strawberry.

Remember not to remove the green top of the strawberry as this is full of nutrient which is good for the bird diet.

How to offer birds strawberries

You should consider how to offer strawberries at your feeder. There are a few way so let’s look at each one and find out what’s best for your yard.

Platform Feeders

You can use an existing platform or tray feeder to place your strawberries on. Either offer them up whole or cut into halves.

This is an easy solution as you don’t need to do much. But, you’ll likely have birds swoop in, pick up the strawberry and then fly off again.

That’s doesn’t give you much watching time.

Warning: If you have trouble with pests such as insects, mice or raccoons, they’ll have easy access to the strawberries on your feeder. You may need to consider using some sort of baffle device to keep the large animals away.

Fruit Feeders

Fruit bird feeders (like this one) are ideal for offering strawberries to your backyard birds. You simply skewer the strawberries in and half it out in your yard. This is a great way to make the birds have to stick around to eat the fruit.

Suet Cage

Suet cages re a great way to hold in a few strawberries. Again this method will help you to keep the bird in your yard as they enjoy eating the strawberries.

Depending on the size of your strawberries put them in the feeder whole or in halves.

This is a great solution for stopping larger animal getting access to the strawberries inside.

Spikes

You don’t need to use a specialist feeder to offer strawberries. You can impale strawberries around your yard on things like:

  • Nail in fences
  • Branches
  • Bird poles

Just be careful not to expose the birds to any sharp edges as they eat. A sharp nail can cause a lot of damage to a bird’s beak.

Related questions

Do baby birds eat strawberries?

Baby bird can eat strawberries but only if regurgitated by their parents. Yet, baby birds have mainly an insect based diet. This provides them with protein to grow quickly and fly the nest. Fledgling birds will eat strawberries. They’ll need their parent to show them it’s a good food source once out the nest.

Do birds eat strawberry jelly?

Bird do eat strawberry jelly, especially fruit loving bird. Whilst dark grape jelly it their favourite, they enjoy berry flavoured jelly, including strawberry. You’ll be sure to attract orioles and woodpeckers with strawberry flavoured jelly in your feeder. The best jelly to use is fresh, preservative and artificial sweetener free.

Do birds eat dried strawberries?

Bird will eat dried strawberries if they are slightly chewy. Dried strawberries which are too hard are not suitable for most wild birds. This is because their small beaks will be unable to eat the strawberry. You may have more success with offering small dried strawberry chips rather than a whole dried strawberry.

Can birds eat canned strawberries?

You shouldn’t offer wild bird canned strawberries. These strawberries are packed in a syrup which is usually full of artificial sweeteners. Although some bird such as orioles may like the syrup. Other bird are likely to get the syrup on their wings which can become sticky and make them prone to illness.

You attract Insects such as bees, wasps and ants with the sticky syrup, much more than if you offer fresh strawberries.

Final thoughts

I hope you found this article of feeding bird strawberries useful.

Remember you’ll attract a lot of different bird by offering fresh strawberries at your feeders.

You don’t need to do much prep, but if you use non-organic store bought strawberries so soak off the pesticides before offering them to the birds.

I hope you get many hours of enjoyment watching the bird eating the strawberries at your feeders.

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