A thought to add to Gin and Carol’s caution to not over-feed meal worms. I had read that warning a number of years ago and have since always offered mealworms alongside crumbled-up suet. The first year that I did feeding, I had suet cakes in hangers which the then-rare bluebird ate a small amount of; I didn’t offer mealworms at that time. I researched online and found a suggestion to crumble the suet for them, and have done that ever since with great success. I do a lot of observing of them as the feeder area is easily viewed from my living room window and I have found that the bluebirds seem to self-regulate themselves between the suet and the mealworms. That observation is reinforced when re-filling the feeders as one day I’ll need to re-fill more of the suet; the next day it might be the mealworms. I just spent about 15 minutes now watching them and they were going for the suet over the mealworms. Additionally, we have many bushes with winter berries on them that they also eat as their mood strikes them. I do very much heed to the over-feeding of mealworms, but I’m wondering if my own observations of them self-regulating, as long as the human provides variety, holds true.Of course that may be the case only when using dried mealworms as I understand from all who have commented on these boards and elsewhere that they go completely bonkers over live mealworms!
Carolyn
New Hampshire