What kind of birds eat sunflower seeds and then hack up a pellet?
All birds hack up a pellet on indigestable material, in birds of prey the pellet is bones, fur, feathers, insect exoskeleton and such. Smaller bird pellets include insect parts, some fruit seeds, nut shell, stem pieces and seed hulls. Many birds that eat sunflowers seeds crack the seed and eat the actual inner seed, house finches, cardinals, gold finches, chickadees and others they still swallow a few pieces of shell. Some birds swallow the whole seed ; blue jays, other jays, crows, even doves will swallow smaller sunflower seeds. And of course larger ‘ground birds’ or fowl; chickens, prarie chickens, quail, grouse, pea cocks, turkeys , geese. Birds don’t chew their food, they swallow it whole or at least whole pieces they pull from a larger piece. The food is ‘chewed’ in the crop, a muscular sack between mouth and stomach, by grit, sand, small pebbles they swallow. The pellet contains some of that worn out grit as well as the stuff the crop couldn’t grind or the stomach acids dissolve
