Ground feeders: the highest-maintenance way to feed birds, and how to do it safely

The short answer

• Juncos, native sparrows, towhees, doves and often cardinals feed on or near the ground and are largely absent from hanging feeders. White proso millet is the food that reaches them.
• Ground feeding is the highest-risk style because droppings land in the food. Move the feeding spot every three or four days and never let seed sit overnight.
• A tray with a mesh floor raised 2 to 4 in off the soil solves most of it: water drains, droppings fall through, and the seed never touches mud.
• Put out only what is gone by dusk. Any seed left at dark is a rodent program, not a bird feeder, and cracked corn is the strongest draw of all.
• A covered ground feeder with 1.5 in mesh sides feeds juncos and sparrows while excluding grackles, jays and doves. Go to 2 in and cardinals get in, but so do grackles.

Some birds will not come up to a feeder. Juncos, native sparrows and towhees forage by scratching in leaf litter, doves walk and pick, and even cardinals do a great deal of their feeding on the ground under a hanging feeder rather than on it. If your yard list is short, the missing birds are often not missing at all. They are feeding at ankle height where you have put nothing.

Who you are actually feeding#

Top top-tier favorite Yes eats readily Some takes occasionally Rare rarely No not a feeder food

Read the millet column. Juncos, white-throated sparrows, song sparrows and mourning doves all put white proso millet at the top of their list, above sunflower, and millet is close to invisible in most hanging feeders because tube-feeding birds throw it out. That single mismatch explains most of the difference between a yard that gets juncos and one that does not.

• Top-tier favorite for: Mourning Dove, Dark-eyed Junco, White-throated Sparrow, Song Sparrow, House Sparrow, Red-winged Blackbird
• Eaten readily by: Eastern Towhee, Common Grackle
• Taken occasionally by: Northern Cardinal, House Finch, Purple Finch, European Starling

The other ground foods are cracked corn, which brings doves, jays and towhees but carries the heaviest rodent and deer cost, and plain black oil sunflower, which everything takes. Safflower is worth knowing about here too: cardinals and sparrows eat it while grackles and most squirrels ignore it, which makes it the seed of choice when a ground station is being raided.

The bargain you are making#

Every other feeder holds food above the birds. A ground station puts food where birds stand, defecate, and where rain, mud and last week's seed all sit together. That is why this is the highest-maintenance style on the site, and it is not a small difference in kind.

Three things concentrate risk:

• Droppings fall into the food. This is the direct transmission route for salmonellosis, which hits ground-feeding flocks such as juncos and siskins hardest.
• Flocks are large and tight. Twenty juncos in a 3 ft circle is normal, and it is exactly the density that spreads disease.
• Doves are vulnerable. Trichomonosis passes through shared food and water, and doves feed almost exclusively on the ground.

The good news is that the whole risk profile responds to two habits that cost nothing: move the food, and do not leave it out.

Move the spot, on a rotation#

Feeding in the same square yard for a whole winter builds a layer of hulls, droppings and damp seed. The fix is embarrassingly simple.

1. Pick four spots at least 10 ft apart, all with cover within about 10 ft so birds can duck into a shrub or brush pile.
2. Feed at one spot for three or four days.
3. Move to the next. By the time you return to the first, roughly two weeks have passed and it has had sun, rain and frost on it.
4. Rake each spot when you leave it, and take up anything still there.

If you are using a tray, moving it is a ten-second job, which is the strongest argument for a tray over scattering. If you scatter, spread the seed thinly over a wide area rather than making a pile: thin scatter means birds spread out, less competition, and nothing left in a heap to sour.

Trays: get the food off the soil#

A "ground feeder" bought as an object is usually a low tray on short legs, and the important part is the floor.

A mesh floor does three jobs at once: rain runs straight through so seed never sits in water, droppings and fine debris fall out instead of accumulating, and air moves under the seed so it dries. Size the openings to the seed: a 1/8 in grid drains well but lets millet through, so use window-screen-grade mesh if millet is on the menu. Raise the tray 2 to 4 in on legs or a pair of bricks and you keep the food out of the mud and slush as well.

Wash trays weekly, and every three to four days in heat or heavy traffic, using the standard routine in how to clean a bird feeder. A ground tray earns the shortest interval of any seed feeder because droppings land in the food. A raised open tray is really a low platform feeder, and everything said there about mess and capacity applies.

Covered feeders, and the mesh-size decision#

An open ground tray feeds whoever arrives first, and in much of the East that means grackles, starlings and House Sparrows clearing it in one visit. A covered ground feeder, a low box with a roof and mesh or barred sides, is the fix, and the mesh size is the whole decision.

At 1.5 in you lose cardinals, which is a real cost since a 45 g cardinal is too bulky to pass. At 2 in you keep cardinals and start letting grackles back in. There is no setting that gives you cardinals and excludes grackles, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. If blackbird flocks are the problem, the seed answer is usually better than the mesh answer: see grackles and blackbirds.

A roof is worth having regardless. Wet millet on bare ground sprouts or molds within a few days in mild weather, and mold is a hazard in its own right, covered in moldy seed.

Not creating a rodent problem#

Ground feeding is how most people accidentally start feeding rats and mice, and the mechanism is always the same: food left out after dark. Rodents feed at night, birds do not, so seed that survives to dusk is a nightly supply for something else.

The rules that keep it from happening:

• Feed by volume, not by habit. Put out a measured amount in the morning, roughly a cup for a typical suburban yard, and adjust until it is gone by mid-afternoon.
• Nothing out overnight. Sweep, rake or lift the tray at dusk. This one habit does more than everything else combined.
• Keep 10 ft of clearance from the house, deck, shed, woodpile and compost heap. Rodents travel along edges and want cover next to food.
• Go easy on cracked corn. It is cheap, it draws doves and jays, and it is the single strongest rodent attractant among common bird foods.
• Stop for a fortnight at the first sign of droppings, gnawing or night activity, and clear the ground completely.

The full escalation, including when to give up on ground feeding altogether, is in rats and mice at feeders. Cats are the other reason to care about your ground station's surroundings: a low feeding area next to dense cover is an ambush point, so keep about 10 ft of open ground between the feeding spot and the nearest thick shrub. See cats and feeders.

Snow and hard weather#

Ground feeding matters most in the weeks when it is hardest to do, because a snowfall buries every natural seed source a junco has.

What works, in order of effort:

1. Clear a patch. Shovel about 3 ft by 3 ft down to bare ground or short grass, near cover. Juncos and sparrows will find it within hours.
2. Lay a board or tray on the snow. Faster than shovelling and it keeps seed on the surface instead of melting down into a crust.
3. Feed under cover. A dense evergreen, a porch overhang or a brush pile stays usable during the storm itself, when an open patch does not.
4. Split the serving. Feed at first light and again in mid-afternoon, so birds get a fresh surface for the pre-roost feed rather than one pile that has been snowed over since breakfast.

First light is the point of highest need, since a small bird has just burned most of its reserves overnight. That is the argument for getting out there in the dark in February, and it is covered alongside the rest of the cold-weather routine in winter bird feeding. Millet spread thinly under a shrub is the cheapest high-value thing you can do for Dark-eyed Juncos and White-throated Sparrows in a hard week.

Frequently asked questions#

Is it safe to feed birds on the ground?

It can be, but it needs a routine. Ground feeding concentrates birds in one spot where droppings fall directly into the food, which is how salmonellosis and other feeder diseases spread. Manage it three ways: use a raised mesh-floor tray rather than bare soil, move the feeding spot every three or four days, and put out only what will be eaten by dusk. Stop entirely for two weeks and disinfect if you see lethargic, fluffed-up birds that let you walk close to them.

What seed should I put on the ground?

White proso millet is the ground-feeding seed. Juncos, white-throated and song sparrows and doves all rate it at the very top, higher than they rate sunflower. Cracked corn brings in doves, jays and towhees but also draws rodents, deer and blackbird flocks, so use it sparingly if at all. Black oil sunflower works, and safflower is useful where squirrels and grackles are a problem. Avoid cheap mixes full of milo and wheat, which mostly rot in place.

How do I feed juncos without attracting rats?

Quantity and timing do it, not equipment. Put out a measured amount, roughly a cup, in the morning, and put out nothing that will still be there at dusk. Feed at least 10 ft from the house, deck, woodpile or shed, use a mesh-floor tray so nothing reaches the soil, and sweep or rake the area once a week. Skip cracked corn, which is the biggest rodent attractant on the list. If you see droppings or night-time activity, stop for a fortnight.

What is a covered ground feeder?

A low tray with a roof and mesh or barred sides, sitting a few inches off the ground. The roof keeps rain and snow off the seed, and the mesh sets a size limit on who gets in. Openings around 1.5 in admit juncos, sparrows and finches while excluding grackles, starlings, jays, doves and squirrels. Widen to 2 in and cardinals can use it, but so can grackles. It is the only ground-feeding design that reliably reserves food for small birds.

Should I keep ground feeding through snow?

Yes, and it matters most then, because natural seed is buried. Clear a patch of about 3 ft by 3 ft down to bare ground or lay a board or tray on top of the snow, and feed at first light when birds most need the calories. Ground feed under a dense shrub or an overhang stays usable through a storm when an open patch does not. Put out two smaller servings, morning and mid-afternoon, rather than one large pile that gets snowed over.

Will ground feeding just feed squirrels and deer?

Some of it will, and there is no mechanical fix, since anything you can scatter is available to everything. What works is limiting the offer: small measured servings finished within the day, no cracked corn, and a covered tray with 1.5 in mesh for the seed you want to reserve. Deer in particular learn a nightly food source quickly and are very hard to un-teach, so stop ground feeding entirely once they start visiting rather than trying to outlast them.

Sources and further reading

1. Feeding Birds Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Project FeederWatch Ground feeding, millet and the species that use it; Cleaning routine and moving feeding areas
2. National Wildlife Health Center US Geological Survey Salmonellosis and other wildlife disease guidance
3. Bird Feeding and Care National Audubon Society Feeding areas, cover and placement