Do Birds Eat Weevils?
Weevils are among the many insects that birds are known to consume.
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They are a productive method of eliminating undesired insects from your garden. Birds typically eat insects such as grubs, aphids, earwigs, cucumber beetles, and tiny weevils.
If you have a bird feeder out for your avian guests, you can add some worms and other insects to it to give them a tasty, high-protein snack.
Why does my birdseed have bugs?If insects make their way to containers of bird feed, it becomes their source of food and shelter. Weevils lay their eggs in the grains, and these eggs can go undetected before processing and packing. When the birdseed reaches your home, these nymphs can hatch and start growing. So, there is a possibility of your whole birdseed container being infested by bugs even though it was completely packed.
Although they can be an annoyance indoors, weevils are not the worst insects to have in bird seed.
To ensure that the seeds stay fresh until the expiration date, make sure you are storing them properly and keeping bugs at bay as much as you can.
Thank you for reading!
Since weevils are a common pantry pest, it should come as no surprise that many of our readers have been contacting us for years with questions about how to get rid of them.
We have recorded some of their emails regarding weevils below. Kindly check to see if any of these are the pests you discover in your kitchen cabinets.
Additionally, feeding them to birds is completely safe, as the article suggests. So feel free to give the birds your infested food instead of throwing it away!
I tried to get some clear pictures of people by spilling a few on a blank sheet of white paper, but I didn’t have much success. They would first cross their legs and pretend to be dead if I shook the paper to knock them all back to a central starting point, but they were simply too fast! However, they would soon unfurl and begin rushing over the paper. Interestingly, their direction of movement wasnt random. Each one of them moved deliberately, and even though their paths were different, they were all always in the direction of the paper’s edge. I reasoned that they might be attempting to avoid the bright halogen that was hanging over the paper’s center, which was meant to light the photos.
Since none of them have ever attempted to fly, the Rice Weevil, which is thought to have wings and be drawn to lights, may be eliminated. The Granary Weevil is not drawn to lights and lacks well-developed wings that allow it to fly. However, Granary Weevils are reddish-brown to black and unmarked, and Rice Weevils are reddish-brown with four pale marks on their wing covers (Maize Weevils are similar). Based on that, it appears that I belong to both of these groups. So who knows! When I submitted the s to BugGuide. net, the individual who recognized them believed it would be best to leave them at genus.
As I watch my parents’ house, one of my duties is to make sure the bird feeders are stocked. The feeders were bustling with activity during the period of exceptionally low temperatures (at least for this time of year; come February, we’d be laughing). At the same time, the seed levels gradually decreased. The thistle and sunflower seed feeders filled up without any issues, but as soon as I dipped the scoop into the mixed seed bag, I detected a strong, unmistakable smell of mold. Looking more closely, I couldn’t really tell if the peanuts had begun to turn and if it had spread to the other seed. I stood for a short while, holding the container in my hand and staring at the seed inside because it didn’t seem too bad yet. I was considering whether or not to still leave it out for the birds at that point because mold can be poisonous to birds once it progresses.
from between them, out crawled a tiny beetle. And then another. And a third. And before I knew it, a dozen or more tiny beetles were crawling around the top. More precisely, I could see the slender snouts sticking out from the front of their heads, so I called them little weevils. For this reason, weevils are sometimes referred to as snout beetles. There are some 60,000 species in the weevil superfamily, Curculionoidea. About 2600 species of the Curculionidae family, of which the majority are members, can be found in North America. Most are herbivorous, and many are crop pests.
Most people’s likely encounter with weevils will be when they open a bag of something and find an infestation of them inside. These are typical outdoor bugs, but they are usually tiny and undetectable until they land on your drink glass or in another coincidental encounter. Still, sometimes they find their way home in grain or seed products bags. This is the case for three species, all belonging to the genus Sitophilus. However, due to their striking resemblance, it is advisable to entrust the identification of these species to a knowledgeable individual possessing a microscope. Their dietary preferences are quite similar, and when their favorite food isn’t easily accessible, they will opportunistically infest other sources.
FAQ
Should I throw out bird seed with weevils?
Are bugs in bird seed bad for birds?
Are grain weevils bad?