Bugs? The perfect gift for mom? Really?          

OK, this one is going to take some explaining!

In reality, there are lots of reasons why you should seriously consider such a seemingly preposterous suggestion.

You see…birds love bugs, and moms love birds. When your yard and feeders offer an abundant source of bugs, the birds are sure to be there to brighten up a mother’s day.

Here’s why.

May is prime nesting season for birds and virtually every bird feeds their young a diet of insects for weeks. If you fill your feeders with foods that contain mealworms, while also providing a healthy, diverse insect population in your yard, you’ll have more fledglings and a greater variety of visiting songbirds.

The same holds true for the flood of migrating songbirds that are passing through your yard this month. For most, insects are the prime source of the fat and energy they need to continue on their arduous journeys. Consider the joy that your own mom will get at her first sighting of warblers, vireos, thrushes and tanagers in her own backyard.

There are two good ways to make sure your yard is full of the insect foods that all of these birds are seeking.

One is to give mom flowers for Mother’s Day. Not the usual bouquet that wilts in a few days, but a variety of native plants that can be grown in her yard (or containers) that will bring joy throughout the entire summer. Native plants add interest and beauty, while also attracting many varieties of the native insects that birds actively seek out.

The second part of the one-two punch is offering mealworms to your birds. Mealworms are quite a treat and provide a stable supplement for birds that naturally eat native insects.

Wild Birds Unlimited offers a wide variety of foods that will make it easy to provide mealworms to your birds. Our WBU Nesting SuperBlend® is full of dried mealworms and comes as a loose seed blend or as a seed cylinder. Our Bug, Nut & Berry Cylinder™ is great at attracting insect-eating birds. And it would be hard to beat live mealworms, which are especially effective in attracting songbirds to your feeders.

So, maybe giving bugs to mom for Mother’s Day is not so preposterous…but you might want to have a copy of this article handy…just in case.