Anyone else feeling sad about not feeding the birds?

[PinkCatCushion]

Anyone else feeling sad at not feeding the birds?
I understand the new advice, and can see the importance of removing bird feeders and only feeding in the winter, but I will miss feeding them so much.
Feeding and watching birds visit my feeders brings me genuine joy. It lifts my spirits. It’s got me interested in nature. I look forward to feeding them each day. I’m REALLY going to miss feeding them.

It’s the robins and blue tits that do it they must be quite clever, it really made me jump the first time !

i gave up peanuts and seeds some time ago
fat balls seem to be ok
fresh water from the tap is interesting. due to chlorine apparently.

greenfinches are on the Red List
i have a merlin app and very occasionally it picks up a greenfinch

I don't think I'll stop, it says they're waiting for results of research so they don't have the evidence that stopping feeding them will prevent disease spread, and I don't get greenfinches at my feeders so not feeding all the others won't make a difference to the greenfinches anyway. I've already planted for birds as much as I can in a tiny garden. I will buy more disposable things like the coconut halves though but they don't last long with my jackdaws.

I will follow the advice, but feel sad about it. The RSPB article says to stop feeding seeds and nuts from 1st May to 31st Oct.
I will keep hanging up fats. I use the half coconut shells from RSBP, although the squirrels also love them!
I do wash my feeders every week, in fact about to do it now! After the morning rush dies down..
I do the weekly BTO bird count and greenfinches are my most numerous bird. But I saw my first chaffinch in 2 years yesterday and the number of gold finches I have has massively declined. My garden is very wild. So hoping they still come along.

I’ll stop. I love feeding the birds but having seen some birds with this disease it’s really awful. Continuing to do so in the face of this advice is just selfish surely?

Those coconut shells do attract corvids! Had rook, magpie and crow eating them this week.. I kind of like them though. I was thinking of joining the RSPB Unlpved Birds club!!
https://unlovedbirdsclub.rspb.org.uk/

Aww just give them mealworms as it says in the article not seeds and nuts (only In summer though) and definitely not bread as PP has said

It is selfish wildlife can be enjoyed but it's not for our entertainment if something is detrimental to a species then don't do it.

and dont use bird tables

Rain won't clean away bacteria. Advice has always been to clean with mild disinfectant not just water. And the advice has always been to move your feeding g stations around to prevent bacteria/disease build up. This is not new! The link posted by a pp i clues the advi e to get rid of flat feeders.

I dont feed birds anyway, I grow gardens that attract insects and leave plenty of fruit on trees for them. I also let them go wild on any pests so grow nasturtiums for the aphids to gather on as when they find these they have a feast. i also regularly leave just weeded or forked over beds for them to feast on anything that gets dug up. Best thing to do for birds is have a diverse garden.

Did @PinkCatCushion read the link? it doesn’t say stop feeding, it says feed seasonally and use good hygiene.
Lots of comments here from ppl who didn’t read the link or have little reading skills.
May -Oct feed mealworms and fat balls and seeds/nuts in winter.

I've been following this advice over the last year or so - no food on flat surfaces, wash feeders regularly, clean the bird bath regularly. I usually ease off feeding end of April anyway, as there is a lot of natural food about over the summer.

Fat balls make such a mess in my garden. I can get magpies or starlings destroy a fat ball in 2 mins and half of it goes all over the garden. No one touches the peanuts, other than the squirrels.

I was really sad too as we also have squirrels that use the feeders too. I think we will just continue to feed but clean the feeders every week.

Same here, but I didn't feed bids in summer anyway. Next door have a big feeding station, which I very much doubt is cleaned, so let's hope rats stay there!

Thank you for sharing this (have onward shared with my neighbourhood whatsapp). The general advice - sticking to fat balls/meal worms, putting very small amounts out and cleaning the feeders and areas below them is really useful if - like neighbours and I - we’d like to continue some sort of safe feeding programme.

Please be careful with ground feeding dried mealworms, if hedgehogs eat significant amounts they die of metabolic disease. I think calci-worms are ok, but be wary of scattering mealworms on the ground.

i have started putting mealworms in the water bowl as i read this somewhere,

We don't use hanging feeders (the ones you fill with seeds or nuts) but do have a small hanging platform which all the types of tits, robins, dunnocks, wrens, sparrows, greenfinches and goldfinches use. I clean it every day and the food disappears. I also put food on the ground for the blackbirds (though all the small birds join the feast too). I will continue to do what I do - especially as the birds are looking for extra food because they have young. Good hygiene is the solution. (The advice is contradictory- don't use feeders but you can put it on the ground and why has it taken the RSPB 15 years to decide feeders are a problem?)

It will if the other birds are spreading g the diseases to other feeders where the greenfinches are.

I can't get my head round the number of people on this thread who are just going to ignore the advice. Unbelievable.

The RSPB has always advised good hygiene, moving feeders etc. People generally igbore it - which is probably why the risk has increased. The new advice is in response to a new level of threat. Why is this so hard to understand?

We don't feed the birds because we have a cat and it would seem like luring them into danger, we still get birds in the garden all the time, we have a pair of wood pigeons who've lived in our garden for several years now. We have a water fountain ds and I made a couple of summers ago and they live splashing in that. You'll still see them

I put crumbs on the shed roof. Lots of magpies and pigeons round our way so it always goes. We have a feeder for the small birds.
Food scraps I put in the freezer then defrost and take down to the local park, with some bread and peanuts for the ducks, geese and swans. The seagulls and the pigeons love the scraps ans they are gone in seconds.
I remember not too long ago that bird experts were telling us not to feed water fowl with bread as its bad for them. Some time later this was reversed because they were all dying from starvation 😉

there are signs up normally at ponds saying do not feed bread.
use the right food for ducks