Facts · Updated 8 Oct 2026
What Do Cardinals Eat? Diet and the Best Feeder Foods
By the Birdfact teamChecked by
Nathan Cope
Northern Cardinals eat mostly seeds and fruit, about 71% of their diet, plus insects, which are almost all their chicks eat. Their favorite feeder food is black-oil sunflower seed. What cardinals eat through the year, the best foods and feeders, and answers on mealworms, peanuts and safflower.
On this page9 sections
Below: what cardinals eat in the wild through the year, what they feed their chicks, and the foods and feeders that bring them to a yard. For the bird itself, see the Northern Cardinal guide.
What do cardinals eat?
Seeds, fruit and insects. In a classic study of 498 cardinal stomachs from 20 states and Ontario, plants made up about 71% of the year's diet by weight and animals 29%.1
| Food | Share of the year's diet | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Weed and other seeds | 36% | Smartweed, bristle grass, sedges |
| Wild fruit | 24% | Wild grapes, dogwood, mulberry, sumac, blackberry, hackberry |
| Grain | 9% | Corn and oats |
| Beetles | 10% | |
| Grasshoppers and crickets | 6% | |
| Moths and butterflies | 5% | Mostly caterpillars |
What cardinals eat through the year
In early spring, cardinals feed on the ground for seeds in fields, meadows and leaf litter. Once the leaves open, they move up into trees and shrubs for buds and caterpillars. In fall they take fruit and seeds from plants and the ground. The share of plant food climbs after summer until it is about 88% of the diet in winter.2
Food for the chicks
Cardinal parents feed their nestlings almost only animal food, mainly beetles, caterpillars, grasshoppers and cicadas, even though they eat mostly seeds themselves.3 More: baby cardinals.
Fruit and red feathers
A cardinal's red comes from carotenoid pigments in its food, laid down as new feathers grow in the late-summer molt. Fruit and insects are rich in carotenoids; most seeds are poor. In an Ohio study of 30 males during the molt, wild grapes made up 31% of what they ate, other fruit 27%, insects 16% and seeds only 8%.4
Best food for cardinals at feeders
Black-oil sunflower seed. In an 18-month study of 22 kinds of birdseed at feeders in Maryland, sunflower was the most preferred, and black-oil the best liked of the sunflower types.5
Project FeederWatch lists these foods for cardinals: black-oil sunflower, hulled sunflower, safflower, cracked corn, millet, milo and peanut hearts.6
Safflower? Cardinals eat it, but in a test with two feeders and no other cardinals around, they chose sunflower over safflower.7
The best feeders for cardinals
FeederWatch lists four types: food on the ground, a platform feeder, a large hopper and a large tube feeder.
Cardinals visit feeders through the day but especially around dawn and dusk.2 Males push females and young birds aside at feeders in winter, and in the feeder test above, males avoided feeders that already had a male on them while females avoided both sexes, whatever the seed.
Keep feeders and trays clean: cardinals are among the birds hit by salmonella outbreaks, which usually spread through droppings at feeding stations.
Mealworms, peanuts and other foods
Do cardinals eat mealworms?
They are not on FeederWatch's list for cardinals. Cardinals do eat insects, including beetles and their larvae, but sunflower is their favorite.
Do cardinals eat peanuts?
Peanut hearts (shelled peanut pieces) are on FeederWatch's list for cardinals.
Do cardinals eat bugs?
Yes: beetles, grasshoppers, crickets, caterpillars, cicadas, leafhoppers, stink bugs and ants, plus spiders, centipedes and snails. Insects are almost all their chicks eat.
Do cardinals eat worms?
Earthworms do not appear in the diet lists of Birds of the World or Audubon's guide; caterpillars, the "worms" on leaves, do.
What fruit do cardinals eat?
Wild grapes above all, plus dogwood, mulberry, sumac, blackberry, hackberry and many other berries. Cardinals often peel a grape and eat the pulp and seeds.
Are cardinals omnivores?
Yes. They eat seeds, fruit, buds and flowers, and insects and other small animals.
What do cardinals eat in winter?
Almost all plant food: seeds, wild fruit and feeder seed. See cardinals in winter.
What eats cardinals?
Cats, Cooper's Hawks, shrikes and owls take adults; snakes, Blue Jays, squirrels, chipmunks and raccoons take eggs and chicks.
Water
Cardinals drink by scooping water in the bill and tipping the head back, and they bathe all year, even in winter, in birdbaths as well as puddles.
Sources
- McAtee, W. L. (1908). Food habits of the grosbeaks. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Biological Survey, Bulletin 32. Accessed 6 October 2026.
- Halkin, S. L., Shustack, D. P., DeVries, M. S., Jawor, J. M., Linville, S. U. (2021). Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis), version 2.0. Birds of the World (P. G. Rodewald and B. K. Keeney, editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology. doi:10.2173/bow.norcar.02
- Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Northern Cardinal: Life History. All About Birds. Accessed 6 October 2026. Source
- Linville, S. U., Breitwisch, R. (1997). Carotenoid availability and plumage coloration in a wild population of Northern Cardinals. The Auk 114(4): 796-800. doi:10.2307/4089305
- Geis, A. D. (1980). Relative attractiveness of different foods at wild bird feeders. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Special Scientific Report: Wildlife 233. Accessed 6 October 2026.
- Project FeederWatch. Common Feeder Birds: Northern Cardinal. Project FeederWatch, Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Birds Canada. Accessed 6 October 2026. Source
- Millican, D. M., McGovern, P. G., Stanback, M. T. (2012). Effects of conspecifics on feeder choice by Northern Cardinals. The Wilson Journal of Ornithology 124(4): 808-811. doi:10.1676/1559-4491-124.4.808
- Kaufman, K.. Northern Cardinal. Audubon Guide to North American Birds (text adapted from Lives of North American Birds, 1996). Accessed 6 October 2026. Source
