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?.

We have a metal bird feed hanger which we've stuck in the soil at the edge of a hedge, the birds nest in the hedge and can sit in there or the trees either side of the feeder to get to the feeder safely. We don't have cats in our garden but we do have a sparrow hawk who visits, much to his disgust he can't get the birds on the feeder because he doesn't have a clear flight path to it.

He only gets a bird when the pigeons sit on the road out the front though he did attack next doors cat a few years ago (karma?)

We use mixed bird food from Vine House Farm, they supply the wildlife trust with food.

Why does everyone hate squirrels so? I put out separate food for them (monkey nuts & hazelnuts, plus have fruit trees) and they are hugely entertaining. There’s a real family dynamic - the mother bosses the kids around. They’re astonishingly athletic and neat and elegant. Their gymnastics are amazing! Plus because they have food to themselves they never attack the bird feeders.
I have lost some young plants, but it’s worth it to watch them. They will sit just a couple of feet from me now, if I have my coffee on the patio. It’s a lovely start to the day seeing them meditatively nibbling their nuts.

Why does everyone hate grey squirrels I don't HATE them it's just sad that they have inadvertently affected the red's population in England. Shall we say that I don't miss them in Fr. I like watching them in England though Mum feeds them.

The fat balls over the road don’t last long enough to go rancid here.

Not seen the great tit since it came 4 times on Wednesday.

Home bargains are doing the black metal bird feeding stations for £13 complete with feeders.

I took the coconut shell down. It’s got claw marks in it but nones been eaten.

One of my little visitors

Aaah (there should be an aaah emojji) for your blue tit Mama ! Is it a blue tit or a Great tit do you think?

Great tit I reckon.

Busy day in our garden yesterday- the buzzard was sitting behind the bush where mice live below the feeders. Was a wonderful sight when he slowly lifted into the air and silently swooped away. Then later I saw the sparrowhawk leaving the area empty-handed, so my sparrows are free to live another day.

I threw some out of date pork belly up the garden which the magpies were enjoying until the ruddy seagulls came down and took it.

The sparrow hawk doesn't enjoy the odd mouse then? seeking

We got 2 hen harriers flying in circles once high above our garden (never again so far) but there are plenty of Kestrels flying and screeching over. We get owls too but not all the time and bats, we have caves!

Since creating an organic garden, with small woodland, we have smallish holes with I don't know what living in them!

I would say great tit ppeatfruit. Though I know very little about birds and have to keep looking them up.
The fat balls in that photo only lasted about two days - we had as many as six birds at a time on the feeder

Yes, your feeder is much too exposed. Birds run the risk of predation to feed, so they need cover very close by, or they will feed less and you will get fewer birds, and fewer species. Do you have any shrubs that you can site the feeder near ?
Encouraging birds to your garden is as much about habitat as food, so you need to grow plants that give cover and shelter, leave some wild areas etc.

Not really, dh wants a low maintenance garden.

The man across the rd has his house on the market, small garden with fake grass, no plants & 4 half full bird feeders.

Even the black bird who is normally omnipresent deserted me this week.

The birds around here just don’t want to play ball. I’ll wait till winter & see what happens.

You can go low maintenance if you garden for wildlife, it doesn’t need to be any more effort.
If you site feeders in a place where birds feel vulnerable, they actually will be vulnerable, that is the problem. You want to feed birds to help them, and to see them, but hungry birds in Winter using exposed feeders are risking death each time, as they are so easy for a sparrowhawk to pick off.

Where in the gardens best? So far the corner of the garage has been most popular.

Excuse the random pot of holly. It’s there to catch the sun.

Put out water!

I have it’s in the terracotta coloured saucer near the cordyline in the square container.

The female blackbird & pigeons use it.

No time for fat balls to go rancid around here. The birds are on them before I'm back in the house

Birds are very entertaining.

For all you wildlife lovers can I also suggest you spare some space for hedgehogs which have been in decline for years and are such dear little things?

For a recent birthday I asked for a hedgehog feeding station and a wildlife camera that takes footage of any overnight action for us to watch the next day. It's amazing!

I have hedgehogs, they love my garden and as a result I also have Hostas uneaten by slugs.

OP you really need some shrubs there, to give small birds some cover. Although if next door has no cover either, you will still have a problem, as they like to flit from bush to bush. Why not plant some shrubs against your fence ?

Because dh doesn’t want shrubs.

I like cottage gardens, he likes low maintenance pots & gravel. There’s cherry trees on the front that the pigeons eat so I hung fatballs out there & nothings happening.

I think I just have to accept that it’s not going to happen.

Sorry if someone else has mentioned this band I've missed it - you shouldn't put out whole peanuts at the moment as the parents will feed them to baby birds who can choke on them. Fine to have them if crushed or in a feeder where they can only take a small chunk at a time.

Otherwise all I can suggest is time..

I’ve got them in a feeder they have to peck at and the top half’s crushed. I think it’s gone down.

Dammit I want birds now though. All you hear all day is sparrows around here. It’s a cacophony of bird song.

But Fluffy be thankful, sparrows are still endangered Why not plant some hydrangeas, and or syringa,orange blossom, they have nice flowers, but are still shrubs. If your dh is anything like mine he knows nothing about gardens. he likes straight lines and no weeds, I ignore him and have curved beds and plant cornflowers and sunflowers which he likes!!

Clematis are nice because they'll climb up your fence ,offering cover for the birds AND flowers.

This is my feeding station. Been up a couple of weeks. A great tit visited the peanut feeder THE FIRST EVENING so I rushed to buy the seed feeder. Nowt since. Only pigeons if I put seed on the tray. I used to have loads of birds in my garden but lost the habit of feeding them and they went. Any tips or is it just patience?