I’m working on a piece about attracting wildlife to your backyard; providing water, shelter, etc. – the “etc.” being food.
One kind of food you provide is nectar, which is what bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, etc. eat.
Another kind of food is “mast,” which is
Here’s my question – would seeds (sunflower, echinacea, thistles, etc.) be considered mast (and if so, soft or hard), or a third category of things?
TIA.
To me, “mast” implies that the seeds/fruits in question are rather large. It also imples that they have fallen to the forest floor. (Actually, I have never heard of fallen fruits referred to as mast, only nuts such as acorns.)
From Merriam-Webster:
I would not consider small seeds to be mast, especially those still on the plant.
If you are talking about providing nuts or fruits in a feeder, I would refer to them as such rather than as mast. I would only use the word mast if you are talking about planting fruit or nut trees on your property that provide food for animals when the fruits or nuts fall from the tree naturally.
Thanks, Colibri – you’re obviously the person I was trying to lure in with that question.
In the article, what I’m talking about specifically is “growing your own” for these things – e.g., not deadheading the echinacea after it goes to seed to attract goldfinches, etc.
As I was researching planting for wildlife food, though, I was finding the term “mast” used in a couple of different ways in various places and started getting confused – I’d always thought of it as fallen food, as you say, which is why the “soft mast/hard mast” thing seemed odd.
Again, many thanks.
twicks, lifetime president of the Colibri fan club
Example of someone distinquishing between hard and soft mast – see section on trees and shrubs.
You did not ask this specifically, but you might also suggest in the article that people use native species to the extent possible. In doing so you’ll provide for direct non-food benefits, such as nesting materials and habitat. Another indirect benefit is that native species will often attract and harbor a range of insect and other associated species that will then serve as prey for larger animals.
Just because I ran into something that made this very clear, even though it’s not directly related to twickster’s question: In describing animals’ customary diets, they will be referred to as some kind of a -vore, either obligate or facultative. The stem prefixing the -vore is of course the Latin for what they eat. The “obligate” means that it’s the essential core of their diet; the “facultative” means that it’s their preferred diet, but they’ll survive on something else if it’s not available. Cats, for example, are obligate carnivores; bears, facultative ones.
Carnivores eat (the meat of) prey; herbivores, leaves and related vegetative parts (grazers eat grass, browsers other leafy material. Graminivores eat grain; fructivores, fruit; haemovores, blood. (Leeches and bats, not Transylvanian Counts!)
It’s important to distinguish the two very similar suffixes -vore (eater of) and -phore (bearer of). Xiphophores are swordtails, tropical fish with sword-shaped tails – A xiphovore would be the circus sword-swallower. 
I plant for birds and I found something they have been eating for two months now. I like evening primroses so I grow them. I found that the birds love to cling to the plant and peck down into the pod. The seed pods were about2 inches long this year and ar down to half an inch. I wasn’t aware that they like this so much until this year.
Is your magizine out now?
Yup, I cover that in the intro, where I also talk about the whole “food chain” concept.
Harmonious Discord – the first issue will be in January (the piece I’m currently working on is for the February issue). If you’d like additional info, feel free to email me – my address is in my profile.
A couple of nitpicks. A graminivore eats grass; a granivore eats grain or seeds. Frugivore is perhaps more commonly used for a fruit eater, and sanguinivore for a bloodsucker.
Other terms include nectarivore (flower nectar), folivore (leaves), insectivore (insects), piscivore (fish), detritivore, saprovore, or saprophage (detritus, rotting material, or general crud), necrovore (carrion), coprovore or coprophage (dung), mucivore (mucus or plant sap), mycovore (fungi), palynivore (pollen), limnivore (mud), and xylophage or xylovore (wood).