Anyone good at feeding garden birds?

[Fluffycloudland77]

I’ve got sunflower hearts, huge peanuts and suet pellets, and even dried meal worms out. The only thing they deign to eat is the sunflower hearts but their not exactly flocking to it. The goldfinches visit daily.

The blue tits been seen once on the sunflower hearts. The great tits been seen twice on the wall mounted suet/peanuts.

Are the birds in our area weird?.

Jays, pigeons, crows, magpies all frighten off the small birds. I’m not happy seeing them dominate.

Do you think they’d prefer the wall mounted feeders on the fence posts?.

We’ve always removed the nets from fatballs.

The woman over the road has no trees around her fat balls (we're in competition she just doesn’t know ) and the sparrows love her feeder.

Yes Joan Our robin was back yesterday! it's quite cold in the mornings. I love our wood pigeons we have a couple who are always together, walking about the place and one settled down on the grass, while the other ate. The ring necked doves are similar.

I don't want to boast but we have hoopoes in our garden in the early summer months !!! We're in MW Fr.

Myo Yes I'm not keen on magpies, I'm thinking of hanging some feeders up for the smaller birds. But I did see a blackbird frightening off a magpie. They're quite fierce.

We’ve been having real trouble with the parakeets here.... they sit in the pear tree and eat pears and throw cores on the floor, which I don’t mind although it’s literally hundreds a day. However, they got wind of the feeders and were stripping them in half an hour, have just had to spend £70 on three new parakeet proof ones, they were having a go at them all day yesterday but I don’t think they can use them. We’ve also chopped down a huge conifer hedge near the feeders at the weekend (checked thoroughly for nests first) and I’m hoping that doesn’t put off the smaller birds, we still have the apple trees and and the pear tree and lots of shrubs and bushes about. It’s a bit bonkers how anxious I am about it all!

I mean, if birds will visit those black bird feeding stains but not a sheltered wall mounted one they feel too constrained by the shelter?.

In my experience birds like access on all sides of feeders - I've had little success with those feeders that stick to windows for example. Your neighbour might have more birds if her feeder is hanging from a corner with access all around it.

I threw the hanging bracket out

Bugger.

Well we’ve attached them to the garden fence. I was spoilt when I lived rurally you just hung a Poundland feeder up with seed from the farm shop & they literally flocked to me.

I’m rural too. We have quite a variety of birds but I prefer the feeding station which divinely keeps the larger birds away. We have lots of red kites around here and I don’t want to have them in frightening the smaller birds either!

They can’t balance on normal feeders I think so they need something open and stable like a table or just the floor

Well I’ve stuck a coconut shell filled with suet up there for them anyway. I’ve been playing blue and great tit calls on the iPad.

I’ve got a gorgeous, if I say so myself, lavender in full bloom. Not one bee.

The only wildlife I’ve got this year is ants 😟.

Our last house was like that. Small, beautiful sun trap south facing garden. Full of gorgeous plants and flowers. But no bees, no birds, no butterflies, the only animals we saw were slugs and spiders.

It’s super depressing. Maybe my buddleja will bloom soon and bring all the bees.

We live near a wildlife cafe with lovely wild areas, a fishing lake and a dog paddock, maybe their all over there now it’s shut due to covid. I’ve completely missed the ducklings this year.

plant a climber up the fence. put a few things in pots along the base of the wall. and don't be too tidy with them. more plants + more mess will give you more wildlife.

I’ve had the great tit in this morning, 4 times and they’re using the correct feeder (the one with peanuts and suet pellets) so well done that bird.

I’ve identified my main competitor as the man over the road. Rightmove shows 4 feeders on a bare wall and bird boxes.

Hopefully I’ll get the blue tit too, saw him once while I was putting the bin out. We were both equally surprised & have agreed not to speak about it.

Fluffy It does take a while for the birds to notice and then feel confident enough to use your feeders. Loads use my table and we have 2 active ex stray cats!! But we do have plenty of trees plus one overhanging the bird table so they can fly to safety quickly if they see danger.

The lack of insects,butterflies is down to either you or the last residents using weedkillers/fungicdes for a long time, or your neighbours or the local farmers.

parietal Is soo right (it's nice to hear good sens on here!!!) Our garden is now filled with life but it took about 5 or 6 years of gardening organically, having plenty of cover (a wild area, well, tbh more than a few!!) for hedgehogs etc. and little 'tidying' . The great thing is that we now have far fewer slugs and snails! the birds and the hedgehogs love them!!

We only use ant killer. I’m anti pesticides anyway.

Birds like ants!!! Indoors I put old lemon skins down. Or just kill the ones I see , they soon learn to go somewhere else. They're alright in the garden. They turn over the soil naturally like moles.

They were in my pots so they had to go. Also there was no birds coming in anyway.

In your pots? Your pots in the garden?

Couldn't resist posting this

We never get birds on our feeders. I've tried the pole feeders in different places (over a period of time not quick moves) and currently on brackets on a pergola. I've tried different brands of seed, fat balls/blocks etc. Nothing! It's a small garden so no large trees/bushes but there is a magnolia (about 5ft) close by, a small apple tree (about 3ft), trellis/pergola/arbor covered in climbers and plenty of other potted plants. No idea what else to do or if I should just save my money on bird food!

Our previous garden didn't have birds even though we had trees and shrubs, but our next door neighbour had loads so we just watched those. This garden we have lots of sparrows, some blackbirds, pair of pigeons, a pair of doves, jackdaws and starlings. We have two seed feeders hung off hanging basket brackets on the fence. The fence has a laurel hedge the other side and several trees. The sparrows like to hide on the fence edge just under the hedge and check things out before coming to eat. They also get brave and fly down onto the grass, into the rose bushes and peck at my peas!
I will say, leave suet based foods until it's very cold. When its warm, they can get it all over them and cause all sorts of issues.
If you have finches, do you have a Niger seed feeder? They love tiny seeds hence when we let thistles grow in our garden last year, we have loads of goldfinches. So pretty to watch.

Out feeders hang in trees and we get loads of birds, costs a fortune and we have 2 cats (but they prefer mice). I think they like feeding in the trees for security.
We feed peanuts, mixed seed and fat balls.
The ground feeding birds like the chicken feed (we have a few hens) so I don’t feed them separately. The chickens get mealworms too so always a few of them around.