Seed and What It Attracts

Seed is the recurring cost of feeding birds and the place where the money quietly goes. Feeders are bought once. Seed is bought again every few weeks, for years.

The useful question about a seed is what it brings in, not what it costs per pound. Those two answers point in opposite directions often enough that price alone is a poor guide, and a bag that looks cheap can be expensive per bird that actually eats from it.

Safflower is the clearest case, and it is already covered here because it doubles as a squirrel question. Audubon reports that squirrels dislike the taste, while Project FeederWatch notes that most birds prefer sunflower to safflower. Put together, that makes safflower a trade rather than a trick: you are buying reduced squirrel interest with reduced bird interest.

Articles here work seed by seed on that basis: who eats it, who ignores it, what ends up on the ground, and what that ground litter then costs you in cleanup.