Bought a bird feeder about 3 weeks ago, thought I’d help the feathered friends.
Taken them 2 weeks to discover it and start showing up. A wood pigeon found it 1st, and then a magpie. Most days there’s a queue of birds sitting on rooftops, phone line cables, or fences waiting for a space
Tends to mainly be the bigger birds which turn up, so far it’s been Wood Pidgeons, Collared Doves, Magpies, Black Birds.
The smaller birds have just started coming around, all I’ve seen at the moment is Wren’s and a Robin.
Also had 2 squirrels stuffing themselves silly.
What visitors do you get? If you’ve got food out for them.
In my experience it’s game over when this happens. Many squirrels will come now taking the whole lot to either eat or stash away and you’ll rarely see any birds.
They’re rats with bushy tails in my opinion. They chew through everything and are mega greedy.
They’ve got a tray on the floor which keeps them occupied, the birds tend to just visit the ones on the pole or the tray if it’s not got any visitors and the rest of the feeders are busy.
There’s an old tip on the end of my street. Well when I say that it’s about 100 foot down in the valley. The squirrels come from down there, they must scale the walls scouting for food. I’d seen one last year but hadn’t realised they climb up on a regular basis.
They run along the top of our fences at either side of the property to get to the bird feeder. But along the way they stop to leave a huge which would probably work as some anti-climb thief deterrent but generally it isn’t nice.
We also have an old shed that they’ve managed to chew their way into. Pretty much every sort of bag has a hole in it now and everytime I open the door at least one comes leaping out and scares the life out of me.
Just saying thanks for the accommodation , I’m lucky that it’s just a concrete and brick jungle around here. They’ll fill up and then go back to the wooded area they came from.
If you want goldfinches, get some sunflower hearts in your feeder. My parents often put sunflower hearts in one of their feeders - I’ve seen upwards of a dozen goldfinches on it at the same time.
I live on the outskirts, so not too far from the countryside. I’ve hung a couple of feeders - one with sunflower hearts and the other with nijer seed.
The birds took less than 24 hours to discover them and I get flocks of goldfinch on the nijer feeder and other finches, tits (blue, great, coal and long-tailed) and the occasional woodpecker on the hearts.
I also get wood pigeons (who doesn’t - waddling fat buggers) that crap all over the patio and hedge sparrows waiting for bits to drop.
Regarding squirrels - I’ve got supposedly squirrel-proof feeders (metal and glass) and they do appear to work. The squirrels decided it wasn’t worth the bother quite quickly.
I’ve got a small flock of Starlings which turn up everyday, absolute chaos when they arrive. About 20 at a time, they are very loud and pretty much clear the feeders in next to no time. The noise attracts all the other birds too.
Sneaky pic from behind the blinds most have gone now must be bed time to get away from the snow
I’m going to try and get a video of the starlings tomorrow. I’ll pull the blind up early and then when I can hear the chaos it’ll be time to point the phone at them.
So far I’ve had, wood pigeons, collared doves, magpies, crows, a robin, house sparrows and then the starlings. They’re the craziest visitors I’ve had so far out of the lot of them. Oh and then those couple of squirrels.
I’ve been reading up about all my visitors today to find out more about them.
There’s a lot of seagulls about a few streets down but they don’t come to my yard luckily. Wouldn’t really want those about.
if you want goldfinches, you can get some special feeders for a few quid on amazon pre-filled with tiny niger seeds - they need hanging in a tree, and after a week or two you will have goldfinches! other than that, I feed pigeons, collar doves, tens of sparrows, blue tits, the occasional great tit, blackbirds, robins, chaffinch, flocks of starlings, magpies. every now and then a sparrowhawk swoops in and steals a sparrow. one of the nicest things is to provide a water bath, the sparrows love it and are always in there, often several at a time - very cute.
Got 5kg of mealworms and black soldier fly larvae delivered, that’ll keep a few birds happy
Any suggestions what I can put in a peanut feeder, other than peanuts they don’t use it, I scatter peanuts on a tray feeder which they’ll all use instead. Tried it with suet pellets but mesh is wrong way round for those, so they hate it.
Was thinking sunflower seeds but then I’m not sure if they’re that small that they’ll fall out the square mesh.
as yet.
which would probably work as some anti-climb thief deterrent but generally it isn’t nice.
, I’m lucky that it’s just a concrete and brick jungle around here. They’ll fill up and then go back to the wooded area they came from.
they are so gormless
they don’t use it, I scatter peanuts on a tray feeder which they’ll all use instead. Tried it with suet pellets but mesh is wrong way round for those, so they hate it.