Table of Contents 1.

From April through to July, our gardens often become busy nurseries for a wide range of garden birds. You’ll often see Blue tits rushing to and from nest boxes, Robins foraging, and Blackbirds keeping their eyes open for insects in the lawn or flowerbeds.

While this is entertaining for us, the parent birds are under huge pressure to feed hungry chicks throughout the daylight hours. While suet is enjoyed by many birds, there is one food source that can help increase the survival rate of these young birds – mealworms.

Mealworms provide not only protein to help growing birds but also vital hydration and amino acids, making them the ideal food for many species. In addition to these benefits, they are also easy for the young birds to digest, making them ideal when it comes to feeding young birds.

Despite these advantages, some people are unhappy about handling live mealworms, so they often opt for dried ones, which are also easier to store. Although not as nutritionally advantageous as live food, they may be ideal for many, so if you do decide to offer them to the birds in your garden, the RSPB and BTO advise that you soak them first. This makes them more palatable and less likely to dehydrate the chicks.

It is also thought that the mere fact that the mealworms wriggle makes them attractive to birds. The natural wiggling action attracts the bird’s attention as they instinctively look for that type of movement when foraging for food. Another justification for live food over dried.

In the past, most garden birds would have been able to easily find sufficient food for their young from natural sources. However, with the changes in gardening techniques and styles, the use of pesticides and the growth in the use of paving and artificial grass, coupled with climate change, make finding live food much harder. By offering live food, you are going some way to redress the balance.

If you do opt to feed live food, always wash your mealworm dishes at least once a week with a mild disinfectant. It’s also a good idea to move the location of the feeder to prevent a build-up of bacteria on the ground below. Mealworms do need to be kept cool and ideally fed mealworm food, which in turn will benefit birds that feed on live mealworms. Mealworm food is made from nutrient-dense bran, so there is always the possibility of some spillage onto the ground; moving the feeder occasionally is also advised.

Quite apart from the conservation benefits of feeding live food to the birds and the help you are providing to the next generation of birds, the birds may quickly learn to wait for you to refill the feeder. Your local Robins, tits, and Blackbirds may learn when you refill, so you may well end up being followed by a local Blackbird or Robin when you are in the garden. What could be better?