Do Hummingbirds Eat Seeds? What Hummingbirds Eat, Plus a Bird Seed and Feeder Guide

Attracting birds to your yard is a beautiful way to give back to nature. As cities and suburbs grow, the habitat and food sources that wild birds depend on keep shrinking, and feeders, nectar, and bird-friendly plants help make up some of that loss. One question comes up more than any other once people start feeding birds: do hummingbirds eat seeds? The short answer shapes how you set up your whole yard, so we lead with it here, then move into choosing bird seed and feeders for the rest of your backyard flock.

Do Hummingbirds Eat Seeds?

No. Hummingbirds do not eat seeds or bird seed, and they will not use a seed feeder. Their bodies are adapted entirely for a liquid diet, not for cracking or digesting seed the way finches, sparrows, and cardinals do.

The reason is anatomy. A hummingbird has a long, slender bill and a specialized grooved tongue that pulls nectar out of flowers by capillary action, as the Cornell Lab’s guide to feeding hummingbirds explains. That tongue is a precision tool for drinking, not a seed-cracking beak. So if you fill a tube or hopper feeder with sunflower or thistle seed hoping to draw hummingbirds, you will attract plenty of other songbirds, but never a hummingbird. For them you need nectar.

What Do Hummingbirds Actually Eat?

Hummingbirds live on flower nectar, sugar water, and small insects. Nectar makes up the bulk of their diet and provides the fast-burning fuel their high-speed metabolism demands, while insects and spiders supply the protein, fat, and vitamins they cannot get from sugar alone.

You can supplement natural nectar with a feeder, and the recipe matters for the birds’ health. Use 1 part white table sugar to 4 parts water, which works out to about 1/4 cup of sugar per 1 cup of water. Audubon’s hummingbird nectar recipe is clear about what to leave out: no red dye, no honey (it ferments and grows fungus that can harm the birds), and no artificial sweeteners (they offer no calories). Natural flower nectar is clear, not red, so plain sugar water is all you need. Boiling the water briefly before mixing helps it dissolve and stay fresh a little longer, then let it cool before filling the feeder.

Insects round out the diet, especially for females during breeding season, and hummingbirds also sip tree sap from the wells that sapsuckers drill. You do not need to provide these yourself. A yard with flowering plants and a light touch on pesticides will keep plenty of small insects around.

Feeder care protects the birds you worked to attract. Change the sugar water and clean the feeder every 3 to 5 days, and more often when temperatures climb over 90 degrees, because heat spoils the solution and encourages mold, per Audubon’s hummingbird feeding FAQs. A dirty feeder can do more harm than no feeder at all.

Do Hummingbirds Eat Suet or Thistle (Nyjer)?

No. Hummingbirds do not eat suet or thistle (nyjer), and neither food will draw them. If a search for suet or thistle brought you here hoping to feed hummingbirds, the answer is the same as it is for seed: offer nectar instead.

Those foods feed completely different birds. Suet, which is rendered fat, is a favorite of woodpeckers, nuthatches, and chickadees. Nyjer, the tiny oily seed often sold as thistle, is prized by small finches such as goldfinches and pine siskins. Both are excellent choices for a backyard feeding station, just not for hummingbirds.

How to Attract Hummingbirds in Southern California

The fastest way to attract hummingbirds is to pair a clean nectar feeder with nectar-rich flowers. The feeder gives a reliable food source while the plants provide natural nectar and the insects hummingbirds hunt, and together they make your yard a regular stop.

Hang a nectar feeder filled with the 1 part sugar to 4 parts water solution and keep it clean, refilling every few days and more often in summer heat. Then plant for nectar. Southern California gardens do well with salvias (including hot lips and autumn sage), fuchsia, lantana, cape honeysuckle, penstemon, California fuchsia (Epilobium, also sold as Zauschneria), and bottlebrush. You can start with nectar-rich plants like salvia and then browse hummingbird and pollinator plants in our plant library to fill out the beds.

In our region, feeders earn their keep all year. Anna’s Hummingbird is a common year-round resident of the Pacific Coast and does not migrate away in winter, as the Audubon field guide to Anna’s Hummingbird notes. Because they stay put, a clean feeder and a few winter-blooming nectar plants will be used right through the cooler months.

Choosing Bird Seed for Other Backyard Birds

For the seed-eating birds hummingbirds are so often confused with, the single best all-around choice is black-oil sunflower seed. Its thin shell and high fat content attract the widest variety of songbirds, from chickadees and finches to cardinals and jays. From there, you can add specialty seeds to target specific birds and skip the cheap filler that goes to waste.

The quickest way to match food to visitor is a simple reference. The table below, drawn from the Cornell Lab’s guide to bird seed types, lays out the common seeds and foods and the birds each one tends to bring in.

Seed or Food	Birds It Attracts	Notes
Black-oil sunflower	Most songbirds (chickadees, finches, nuthatches, titmice, cardinals, jays)	Thin shell, high fat; the best all-around seed for the widest variety
Nyjer (thistle)	Small finches (goldfinches, lesser goldfinches, pine siskins)	Tiny oily seed; use a fine-mesh thistle or tube feeder
White proso millet	Ground feeders (native sparrows, juncos, towhees, doves)	Best scattered or on a platform tray, not in hanging tubes
Safflower	Cardinals, finches, and some others	Squirrels and blackbirds tend to avoid it, so it helps deter them
Suet (rendered fat cakes)	Woodpeckers, nuthatches, chickadees	Served in a suet cage; a protein and fat source, not a seed
Cracked corn	Doves, jays, sparrows, quail	Cheap; can also draw less desirable or aggressive birds
Nectar / sugar water (not a seed)	Hummingbirds and orioles	1 part white sugar to 4 parts water, no red dye; served in a nectar feeder

One thing to avoid is the bargain mix. Cheap blends are often padded with red milo, a filler most backyard birds will kick aside to reach the sunflower underneath. You end up paying for seed that piles up on the ground and draws pests. A bag of quality black-oil sunflower, plus one or two specialty seeds for the birds you most want to see, outperforms a big cheap mix every time. Fruit feeders are worth a mention too, since tanagers, bluebirds, robins, orioles, grosbeaks, and waxwings all take fruit. A feeder designed to hold half an orange is a favorite of orioles, and larger corvids such as crows and mockingbirds will visit for fresh fruit as well.

Choosing the Right Bird Feeder

Match the feeder to the birds you want, because feeder style and size decide who can comfortably land and eat. The right pairing of feeder and food lets you shape which birds show up, while the wrong size sends food to the ground or lets bigger birds crowd out smaller ones.

Common feeder types

A handful of feeder styles cover almost every backyard situation:

• Tube feeders suit small songbirds, finches, and chickadees. A fine-mesh version holds nyjer for goldfinches while keeping larger birds out, since the small openings let small bills in but block big ones.
• Hopper feeders hold a general mix and work well for cardinals, jays, and a broad crowd of medium songbirds.
• Platform or tray feeders have the widest reach and are ideal for ground-feeding birds like doves, sparrows, juncos, and towhees. Scatter millet or cracked corn here rather than in a hanging tube.
• Suet cages hold rendered fat or seed cakes and bring in woodpeckers, nuthatches, and chickadees. You can also use peanut, insect (mealworm), or mixed cakes depending on the birds you want.
• Nectar feeders serve sugar water for hummingbirds and orioles, and they are the only feeder on this list a hummingbird will use.

Size matters as much as style. A larger bird landing on a small feeder will tip it and dump seed, and doves or pigeons often cannot perch on feeders built for finches at all. Choosing a feeder scaled to your target birds keeps the food where it belongs and the right guests fed.

A tip for nectar feeders

For hummingbird feeders, glass is the better material because you can sterilize it to reduce the risk of spreading disease. Plastic feeders do the job, but they are harder to clean and cannot be safely sterilized. Since birds can pick up and pass along pathogens like salmonella at feeders, sterilizing a glass feeder between fills is a simple safeguard worth the small effort.

Do not forget water

The last ingredient in a bird-friendly yard is water. Birds need it for drinking and bathing, and a reliable water source will often draw species that ignore your feeders. A birdbath, a small fountain, or even a shallow wildlife pond all work, and moving water is especially good at catching a bird’s eye. Keep it clean and topped off, and you will round out a yard that supports a wide and welcome variety of birds.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do hummingbirds eat seeds?

No. Hummingbirds do not eat seeds or bird seed and will not use a seed feeder. Their long bill and tongue are built to drink nectar, so they feed on flower nectar, sugar water, and small insects.

Do hummingbirds eat bird seed?

No. Bird seed is for finches, sparrows, cardinals, and other seed-eating songbirds. Hummingbirds cannot crack or digest seed, so a seed feeder will not attract them. Offer a nectar feeder instead.

What do hummingbirds eat?

Mostly flower nectar, plus sugar water from a nectar feeder (1 part white sugar to 4 parts water, no red dye and no honey), and small insects and spiders for protein, fat, and vitamins.

Do hummingbirds eat suet or thistle (nyjer)?

No. Suet feeds woodpeckers, nuthatches, and chickadees, and thistle (nyjer) feeds small finches like goldfinches. Hummingbirds use neither; they need nectar or sugar water.

What is the best bird seed for backyard birds?

Black-oil sunflower is the best all-around seed because its thin shell and high fat attract the widest variety of songbirds. Add nyjer for finches, white millet for ground feeders, and safflower for cardinals, and avoid cheap mixes heavy with red milo filler.

How do you attract hummingbirds?

Put up a clean nectar feeder (sugar water at 4 parts water to 1 part sugar, no dye, cleaned every few days and more often in heat) and plant nectar-rich flowers such as salvia, fuchsia, lantana, cape honeysuckle, and California fuchsia. In Southern California, Anna’s Hummingbird visits year-round.

Sources:

• Audubon: How to Make Hummingbird Nectar
• Audubon: Hummingbird Feeding FAQs
• Cornell Lab All About Birds: Feeding Hummingbirds
• Cornell Lab All About Birds: Bird Seed Types
• Audubon Field Guide: Anna’s Hummingbird

Find Feeders, Seed, and Nectar Plants at Green Thumb Nursery

Whether you are hanging your first nectar feeder for the local Anna’s Hummingbirds or stocking up on black-oil sunflower for the whole backyard flock, we can help you match the right food and feeder to the birds you want to see. Stop by to pick out feeders, quality seed, and nectar-rich plants, and our staff can point you to the varieties that thrive in your part of Southern California. Come visit your local Green Thumb Nursery to get started.

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