Black oil sunflower for wild bird feeding, wildbird birdseed

Black oil sunflower seed is the most important seed in any backyard bird feeding plan. Almost any bird that visits a bird feeder will readily eat black oil sunflower seeds, and studies have shown that, given a choice of seeds, more species of birds will choose black oil sunflower seeds over any other food that is offered.

The shell of the black oil sunflower seed is thin and easily broken by birds, even those with small beaks. Once opened, black oil sunflower seeds offer more nutrients than any other type of seed, a higher ratio of nutmeat to shell, and the quality of protein is among the highest of any plant food on earth.

The high oil content in black oil sunflower seed, along with the high fat content, provide instant energy for the birds that eat them - something that is of critical importance in winter bird-feeding. In addition, black oil sunflower seeds are high in fiber and contain Vitamin E, biotin, choline, thiamin, and zinc.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who published a landmark study of bird food preferences in 1980, recommends that sunflower seeds be offered to birds all year round, and black oil sunflower seeds are by far the most preferred type by the greatest number of bird species. Cardinals, chickadees, nuthatches, house and purple finches, and grosbeaks are among the species that showed preference for black oil sunflower seeds in the study. But rather than list all the bird species that picked black oil sunflower seeds as their first choice in the study, it would be easier to list the two species that didn't - starlings and tree sparrows.

Chickadees and nuthatches are notorious for stashing away black oil sunflower seeds for later consumption, usually under tree bark, creating their own private caches of food to get them through the roughest days of the winter. Chickadees even grow additional brain cells for the winter just to keep up with their hiding places. One study showed that chickadees seemed to know exactly how many seeds were in each cache and would become extremely agitated when one or more seeds were taken away in their absence.

Quality and freshness count in selecting black oil sunflower seeds. The heaviest, fattest ones go into the production of sunflower oil for cooking, one of the healthiest cooking oils on earth. At the other end of the spectrum are the smallest, lightest black oil sunflower seeds found in the least expensive bird food mixes sold by mass marketers and grocery stores. As birds dig through the mix looking for the few black oil sunflower seeds it contains, most of the inexpensive filler seeds the birds don't eat wind up on the ground. And when the birds do find the few black oil sunflower seeds in these inferior mixes, they weigh them in their beaks and often toss them aside because the kernel within is not worth the trouble and energy it takes to open it the shell.

In the bird-feeding industry, black oil sunflower seed is simply known by its initials, BOSS. That pretty much sums up the importance of this seed for the industry, and for the birds.

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— written by Carla Davis; The Wild Bird Lady  (c) 2004 eBirdseed.com - Written permission required for use of images/text on these pages.

Carla Davis is a Habitat Consultant residing on Long Island, New York, where she gives seminars on how to develop Backyard Bird Habitats through bird feeding and native gardening at Garden Centers, Garden Clubs, Nature Centers, Schools, and Audubon Chapters. She has taught portions of the Master Birding Course for Cornell Cooperative Extension, Suffolk County, New York, and her property has been designated as an Official Backyard Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation.  She is a contributing writer to Birding Business magazine and The Bird's-Eye reView, the newsletter of the former National Bird-Feeding Society, where she served as a member of the Board of Directors.