Are these birds taking the piss?

[Serin]

We feed the birds but if feels like the little buggers are coming from miles around to eat at our table. Flocks and flocks of them, more every day.
Today at 8.30am I filled a large feeder with RSPB approved peanuts and it is already half empty.
I also put chopped apple and pear out for the thrushes.
I dont want them to starve but does anyone have any idea of what I can safely feed them that doesn't cost a fortune?
A budget meal plan?
Like lentils??

They are akin to the trick or treaters with their cars, trying to cash in on a well-stocked street and driving for miles instead of sticking to their own village. Without proper checks and balances this could become a stampede. YANBU.

Don't put out mealworms - our feeder was emptied in 2 fucking hours! No mess seed lasted 1 day ...

Fat balls seem to last 1 to 2 weeks here so we stick with those.

Word gets round.
Birds might be struggling to find food. You're doing a good thing!

I regularly feed the birds and they’ve been heard squawking when I put the food out, so I think they call to others too
I bought shelled peanuts for the squirrel who lives in my garden and the magpies took them all

Do you have a squirrel? They guzzle food - it tends to be squirrels who take all our food.

The squirrel hardly gets a chance.
The birds beat him to it every time

Wilkinsons wild bird seed mix - 12.75kg for £6 is quite good value.

I have to be quite creative in my garden to stop the bloody pigeons and wood pigeons nicking everything as soon as it's put out.

We have literally dozens of blue tits, great tits, long tailed tits - hundreds in total.

The tits totally MOB the feeder, and seed mix only is exhausted in a day with all the bits they don't like chucked onto the floor for the robin, sparrows and chaffinches. the pheasants and pigeons also help in clearing up. Bless em...

So I alternate seed and sunflower seed and the sunflower seed they take, eat and then come back, hardly any is thrown and it gives the cleaning party time to do their work.

Fat balls do take a while to get eaten.

I have squirrel and big bird proof feeders, they are great! Roamwild I think they are called.

Now have no issues from the magpies, crows, rooks etc - although a starling did try it on to the abject horror of the blue tits who were landing on my window sill and pecking the window to tell me to 'Do something!"

Starlings regularly eat 4 of my fat balls in one day, and we've had complaints from the neighbours about the noise.

I'd make my own, but I'm worried about my husband eating them.

RSPB approved nuts - well I am impressed

Yes we do have squirrels but we have finally outwitted them by putting baffle cones on the poles that the feeders hang from.
I do still put some accessible good out for them too but TBH the squirrels seem to prefer left over pizza (slobs ).

FeministFish That actually made me snort out loud

You have LEFT OVER PIZZA? You're supposed to eat that for breakfast! or post it to me, I'm on a diet and starving

KC225 Yeah so are the birds!!
They were a Christmas present off DSIS.
They usually get cheaper stuff from local garden centre.
I will have a look at Wilkos.

UtterlyUnimaginative
I suspect you are a squirrel in disguise.

I'd make my own, but I'm worried about my husband eating them Don't keep them in the fridge then

We feed the birds [I'm old!!!!] and I now buy bird food on line as it's much cheaper. I used to buy peanuts from Wilko at £8 for 4 kg [£2 per kilo] but I now buy from Twootz - 25 kg [2 x 12.62 kg bags] for £29.99 which works out to £1.20 per kg. There is no P&P.
I swear our birds are better fed than us...

Hmm how long do the Twootz bags last Redwood? £29.99 tho!!
I get that it's cheaper to buy in bulk but it's a lot to shell out.

Sooooo jealous....our street has quite a few cats so, no matter how many sunflower hearts and peanuts I put out, we rarely get any birds. Makes me sad as I love watching them
(glares at my fat tabby purring contentedly next to me)

I'm with @UtterlyUnimaginativeUsername. What is this "leftover" pizza of which you speak?

And, totally unrelated, where do you live and what time do you put the pizza out?

I’m afraid I spoil my tweety visitors with Richard Jackson’s birdy crack cocaine. It’s dense cat country though, so much of it is chucked on the ground and nae fecker is brave enough to risk it.

I’ve got one of those pole feeding station thingys and it’s quite amusing to see the big fat pigeons try to look cool whilst one leg is sliding down.

When I am skint, they get homemade stuff with seeds and oatmeal but they’re really not keen.

I've been wondering similar- no great flocks of anything, but a very fat woodpigeon that empties the dish in one go. I need more variety of feeder and food!

Glad to see the tips about where to get stuff- I'm due to restock.

Once our last cat died last year we started feeding the birds. Our next door neighbours do too as do the next door but one so plenty of food around (we all feed seed and fat balls).

We spend a fortune on them. The 2 seed feeders are emptied by them everyday plus the seed, peanuts, bread, suet pellets etc we put on the path.

We have 3 fat ball feeders that hold 4 fat balls each. They usually need filling every other day!

We buy our food from either Home Bargains or Wilkinsons

My mum puts bacon rind out for the birds. No idea if that's actually healthy for them.