A nice thread about garden birds. What comes to your garden? Do you feed them? What food you put out? 🐦

[Corvid19]

Hello armchair twitchers and window watchers!

I got two bird feeding stations for Christmas and am so enjoying watching from my window now I have them set up.

I have various tits and finches (mostly blue tits and chaffinches), robins, wagtails, collared doves, a wood pigeon or two, and many corvids (rooks and jackdaws mostly, but the odd crow too), blackbirds and sparrows. I think anyway... I'm still not quite expert at identifying them!

I put out fat balls (the corvids demolish them!) mixed seed, sunflower seed hearts, peanuts, dried wormy things, and fat pellets.
The peanuts are not so popular, but perhaps they will be with summer birds? I blooming hope so, I have a big bloody sack of them!

Tell about your birds 🐦

I love feeding the birds I get a Robin, blue tits, finches, blackbird and wood pigeons. I love them all but the wood pigeons are so funny! They wait every morning for their feed !

Robins, blue tits, blackbirds, sparrows galore. A beautiful green thing I have only glimpsed from a distance. I give them fat balls and those red berry pellets.

Oh, ravens, too. And red kites which swoop down and attack things in our tree.

We’ve got a small garden but got into feeding the birds last year, seed until the winter then fat balls. We’ve gone through 41 fat balls in 6 weeks!

I’m rubbish at knowing what they are but pigeons, robins, magpies, crows, blue tits and the odd squirrel have definitely become regulars. M

Wilkos have buckets of 50 for £4.50 which is insane. I was making them - veggie suet, oats, raisins and cheese - but they’re going so fast I’ve switched to bought ones. I made a batch of muffins that none of us liked last week and been putting those out too, crumbled up on a plate. Also very popular.

I put out sunflower hearts and get goldfinches and a robin with the odd magpie and pigeon. I did put out other food but that attracted crows who were really noisy and shat everywhere so I stopped before the neighbours complained!

The usual blue tits, great tits, sparrows (though I love seeing them) as well as loads of finches: goldfinches, greenfinches, chaffinches and bullfinches. Regular nuthatches; I even had a greater spotted woodpecker on it at the weekend. It's absolutely brilliant, I love seeing them all though I worry that the numerous neighbourhood cats will have a field day when the weather warms up, because lots of the birds fly down to the ground to pick up the bits that fall out.

You're doing really well to have so many birds coming down if you've only had the feeders since Christmas. Keep an eye on the peanuts @Corvid19, they can go off and rot in the wet then the birds won't eat them.

I love feeding the birds, i get plenty of blackbirds, starlings, pigeons, collard doves, blue/great/coal tits and sparrows, a few robins, great tits (winter) i also have the odd chaffinch, wren, gold finch, green finch, bull finch, female blackcap.
I only moved here in June and the last owners didn't feed birds and neither do many houses around us, so i'm hoping in time i'll get more birds as they find the feeders.
I put out sunflower hearts, fat balls, suet blocks, suet pellets, mixed seed and peanuts, mealworm too when i remember to buy some as the wren loves them!
I also have 2 very cute squirrels :-D

I love watching our birds too.

I'm in Central Scotland and get a whole host of little birds visiting.

Bluetits, great tits and coal tits, a pair of dunnocks, robins, sparrows, a pair of blackbirds, wrens (although not seen one for ages), wood pigeons, collard doves, magpies and crows.

We used to get a family of about bullfinches too big haven't seen those for months.

I put out mixed bird seed, peanuts and fast balls. The mixed seed and peanuts are devoured very quickly but our fat balls are often left untouched. We also get grey squirrels so whatever the birds don't eat the greedy squirrels gobble up very quickly.

This morning I have a pair of blue tits in and out of of my birdbox, the box laid empty last year so it's nice to see the birds using it.
We also have a very friendly blackbird that likes to look in the window at me.
We have to limit how much food we put out tho as we seem to only attract starlings then and it scares all the other birds away. They will decimate 6 fat balls in what seems like minutes.

@Daleksatemyshed

Yes, I live rurally (a much hated phrase on MN!) so there are lots of birds around anyway, just nice to get them in closer.

Good point about the nuts. I think I'll take in the damp ones and just put a few on the tray here and there.

I’m in Greater London and we’ve had a jay and a woodpecker in our garden as well as some more common ones. We also get a few parakeets visiting our tree and hear their squeaking calls all day long as they fly over.

Envious of many PPs lovely visitors! I hope I get as many.

Hi

I love my garden birds.

We get hoards of blue tits and great tits. The odd coal tit thrown in. And last winter a group of long tailed tits visited regularly so hoping they come back again as they are beautiful. First time I'd ever seen one. Regulars are Robin, blackbird and wood pigeon. I see the odd bullfinch but rarely and never caught on camera yet!

Sorry to be a dampener but we get no visitors! Don’t know if it’s because neighbours have an incredible feeding station very popular with lots of birds, or because we have a cat, or something else? Had two feeders - one of the classic type with a special seed mix I bought online with mealworms added and then a window box one - clear plastic stuck to the conservatory. Nothing came and then the food rotted so I took down. Any tips? We have brick walls, hedges, conservatory that we could mount them on.

I love feeding the birds. We get Jays, Pied Wagtails, and Blue Tits along with the Sparrows. I'll even let the Pigeons have their fill, but they need shooing away or they'll eat everything. I love watching birds.

Oh yes, coal tits! They turn up occasionally. I think my neighbours at the back also have feeders so the birds swap between the two. I've had jays in the tree but they're just passing through. Funnily enough I have just heard a raven croaking in the distance! I am in a housing estate on the edge of farmland so get a good range of species.

This is a lovely thread. I get lots of little birds (coal tits, great tits, robins, wrens) in my tiny urban garden but would love to attract more by putting out a feeder.

Any tips on what is best would be much appreciated! (lots of pigeons and ring necked parakeets around here, which I'm not keen to attract)

We have three bird feeders and watch from the kitchen. We put out fat balls, nuts and mixed seed and get loads of blue tits and sparrows. We have our resident pigeon (Pinhead, as he's known), a lesser spotted woodpecker, occasional goldfinches, robins, wagtails, collared doves, crows, magpies. Looking on from above there are buzzards, kites, the occasional kestrel and sparrow hawk. I love watching the birds.

I bought a cheapie bird box from HomeSense and was delighted when a pair of blue tits moved in the first year. I've seen few viewing it this year as well.

@Gastropod I have two of these and they are mobbed!
I did put one in the front garden initially, but it was a bit quiet. Both in back garden now. If you Google bird feeding station lots come up and there seems to be lots of good sale prices ATM.

www.trowellgardencentre.co.uk/products/smart-garden-chapelwood-complete-dining-station-black?currency=GBP&variant=32466570870839&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Google%20Shopping&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9vrut4-s9QIVdPbVCh3a-AtcEAQYBSABEgJILPD_BwE

@Corvid19 thanks for the recommendation! (your username raised a smile BTW)

I always put out a whole apple for the birds to peck at. It's very popular with the blackbirds. They're ground feeders so l leave it in the flower bed under a tree. If startled they retreat quickly into the *weeds" undergrowth.

I have robins, sparrows, jays, a woodpecker, thrushes, collar doves, starlings, those blasted parakeets, blue tits etc.
I have fed them for many years and they are lining the fence when I go out first thing in the morning, the minute I open the door they are swooping down to be fed. I have a robin who sits right next to me when I'm putting out the food.

Aww we had a robin a few years ago who would take mealworm out of our palm ❤️

Fat in coconuts
Peanuts
Dried worms
Mixed seed with sunflower seeds
Apples
Kitchen scraps
Niger seeds (supposed to attract gold finches)
Water

Blackbird
Robin
Pigeon
Blue tit
Great tit
Sparrow
Dunnock
Wren
Magpie
Occasionally seagull
Occasionally gold finch
Sparrowhawk twice
Bullfinch twice
Grey squirrels