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.

i think you put this on the wrong thread @Phyllisdelphia

Im not sure i can bare to stop feeding my sparrows, they yell at me if the feeder gets low. I do disinfect the feeders regularly but have upped this now, ive never seen a green finch even before I started feeding them, I get lots of sparrows, some blue tits, Robins, starlings and the odd long tailed tits

I didn’t think you had to stop feeding the birds, just don’t use feeders. It’s ok to put food on the ground .

Only if you change the location all the time, no ground feeding tables etc.

Other birds including sparrows can be affected and can carry the disease. The advice is really clear. Don't put seed out in feeders.

I used to feed the birds and then we had rats in the garden climbing onto the feeders or sitting beneath the feeders waiting for scraps.

I no longer feed the birds but we still get birds in the garden

Thank you for this , I’ll take note. I put food on grass , not on a bird table

they never really ate the seed i put out, and definitely not the peanuts
so i just put out fat balls, meal worms, sunflower hearts,

i have sparrows and some lovely blue tits, i have bird box which the blue tits use,
i have fat wood pigeons and jack daws, and today for the first time in many years, i had a starling
my merlin app picks up a goldfinch but i never see it

My mum has a peanut feeder and a woodpecker as a regular visitor! I've shared the RSPCA advice but she's going to carry on regardless.

I can high recommend planting sunflowers. We had a group of dwarf sunflowers in a border last year and watching the tits eat the seeds made my day, they were fascinating to watch.

I can't be bothered to clean feeders regularly so I've gone with making sure there are flowers in the garden all year round to attract the insects and we seem to have lots of birds (we're surrounded by mature gardens with lots of trees so it's a great environment for birds). And we have a birdbath that gets cleaned and refilled twice a day that they love. At this time of year my favourite thing is to put out the wool that our Christmas goose comes wrapped in as insulation, the birds love it for their nests and it attracts lots of corvids (my favourites).