Do birds eat forsythia buds?

The forsythias are in bloom in my area and I've noticed a curious thing: only the flowers along the bottom branches have flowers, including on my shrub.

During the winter my forsythia was mobbed by sparrows, finches, and juncos. I couldn't imagine why, but now I wonder if they were eating the flower buds.

We had an unusually warm February, so the buds were in a state of half-open for quite some time.

They might have destroyed the buds in order to get at insects overwintering inside them, but I would also suspect deer if you have them in your area.

I'd say the loss of flowers there was weather-based.

Depending on the cultivar/selection of Forsythia, many lost the flower buds to cold. The lower branches that might have had snow protection would have survived.

In warm winter weather where some buds may have started to swell, if this was followed by below freezing cold - that also could eliminate any blooms from those buds.

You could examine and photograph those plants, and post images here. If the buds are missing, then the bird hypothesis may take flight. If the buds are there and just dead, well, I'd say they froze.

The buds are missing. Leaves are beginning to form. This is the "Meadowlark" cultivar, which I've had since 2002 (http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/79766/). The lower branches never had snow on them this year. The only protection they might have had was either (a) the birds ignored them for being too low (b) the nearby driveway radiated enough heat for them.

Here in Utah, we had exactly the opposite weather pattern as folks east of the Rockies: unusually warm weather during January and February.

I saw another forsythia against someone's south wall and its covered in blooms. No idea if it was also popular with birds.

The birds have dug out some dust baths under this shrub, which they've never done before.

At the very least they left plenty of guano and entertained the cat from his indoor perch.

That's a riot. Cat entertainment vs. human entertainment.

dicentra, do you have a deer problem in your area? Deer don't like to bend their heads down low enough to eat buds and leaves from the bottom parts of shrubs, so those are the last to be eaten.

Deer aren't supposed to like Forsythia, but they eat mine.

I'm out in the suburbs, surrounded by more suburbs, where deer don't venture. Here in Utah, we don't have white-tailed deer but mule deer, which are nowhere near as bold as the white-tails. I'd have to live in the foothills to get deer problems.

So no, I don't have deer nor rabbits nor moles nor any other critters that are common in your neck of the woods.

Just them birds.

Lucky you!
Look what I just found: "Some plants affected by bud-and-blossom-eating birds include pear, apple, peach, plum, crabapple, cherry, red maple and forsythia. House finches seem to have a special fondness for forsythia. Nurserymen in the Northeast have reported that house finches often damage their forsythia plants by eating emerging buds." http://www.gofishgeorgia.com/node/2129

Thanks Muddy1!

Looks like you found the answer.

You're welcome! I never would have guessed that birds ate buds, so I learned something too.

In this area, Forsythia - and quite a few other things - were affected by a hard early frost last fall. It kept quite a few spring-blooming things from blooming, including Forsythia. Some things it took out the leaf buds, too. Some things it killed outright. We are just starting to get an idea of the overall damage.

In the Netherlands Forsythia buds are also eaten by House sparrows, European Greenfinches, Eurasian Bullfinches, European Goldfinches and Ring-necked parakeets. Maybe it's because of the colour yellow, since those finches and sparrows also eat yellow crocuses?

Muddy,

I appreciate the article you posted. Here's a section of it...

"Why do birds eat buds and flowers? The answer is simple – They are nutritious. ... Look at it this way, since food is often extremely scarce in late winter and early spring, birds that consume buds and flowers have a more abundant source of food than those that are having a very hard time finding anything to eat.

With that in mind, should you spot birds eating flowers and buds in your yard this spring, I hope you won’t mind sacrificing some blossoms to birds whose beauty adds so much to the colorful spring show being staged just outside your backdoor."

I am one who appreciate birds more than plants. If I need something as food for us, I will try to protect that plant. Someone gave us a raspberry shrub, so we may try to do something for that as it matures, but not anything that could harm the birds.

We've gotten rid of most ornamentals of non-native origin (I think the only ones are the children's tulips and irises) and expect our plants to be consumed. We have such pleasure out of seeing the birds and the interesting bugs that are now visiting our yard.

I used to grow raspberries and I don't recall that the birds ate them. I had to put a fence around them to keep deer from eating the flowers and buds, though.

Blueberries are a different matter! Birds eat them as soon as they start to turn blue. Deer didn't touch any part of the blueberry shrubs, however.