Can’t resist as they bring so much joy for relatively little cost.
I know the feed probably attracts vermin and we have at least one bird imposter squirrel.
We’ve had lots of large bladed grass appear in different parts of the garden which I assume may have come from bird feed, maybe not.
What do you tend to use?
On a less common note does anyone know of any good formulations without peanuts/peanut flour as one of us has an allergy, and although I’m careful about keeping any peanut based foods away from others I always wonder how well the allergenic proteins degrade in soil and over how long?
I use sunflower hearts and sunflower hearts only. The bladed grass is hemp and more than one person has had the gentleman in blue uniforms getting orgasmic think that an old aged pensioner is openly growing illicit substances .
It may be very good for rope making but pretty useless at getting teenagers stoned.
I use bird feeders from a firm called Roamwild that blocks pigeons and squirrels , by means of a mechanism that stops heavier creatures perching on the feeder.
Today I have had masses of finches and a woodpecker
Last week I had the highly unpleasant job of cleaning the shed with Jeyes Fluid , and wearing a serious mask. I have a house that is neighboured by grain fields and r*ts are a perennial problem for many houses.
I normally do this job all in one go , wearing mask and gloves, strip naked and put my clothes into washing machine and then have a bath.
Sunflower hearts produce sunflowers as weeds and that is the only downside. I buy them in loads of 18kgs
Interesting … I don’t buy bird food except for my hens who get a chopped maize mix first thing. It’s all gone before they attack their layers pellets, which are in a feeder. Robins go for the maize mix, but I’ve not seen other birds go for it.
Standard advice is to provide the mix after they have eaten their fill of the pellets. However, as they are rescue birds I thought a treat first thing was the least I could do for them.
I love feeding the birds. Not only is it great for them, it’s great for me. The garden is always a hive of activity, whether I look out the window or step out and hear them chirping. Wouldn’t be without them.
After years of wasting money and a mess in the garden, for the past 4 years, I’ve settled on sunflower hearts and fat balls. I buy the hearts in 20kg bags and source them for no more than £1.50 per kg. Last one was £1.25/kg, not long ago (Amazon).
Regarding fat balls, don’t buy any old rubbish, the birds won’t eat them. Bell Superior fat balls are great.
With the above food, there’s not a lot of waste, so shouldn’t attract rats, etc. You need to hang the food in a way rats can’t get it and definitely don’t store this food outside or in a garage without a metal container.
I have some reservations about feeding birds, as it seems fundamentally wrong to make them as dependent on food which has been processed, packaged and transported, usually from overseas, just as it’s wrong for us to depend heavily on food from a handful of supermarket chains. I still feed them, though. There are some brands who produce mixes of locally grown seeds, obviously at a higher price.
There are also ‘no grow’ mixes which have been treated so that they won’t germinate, although I don’t know what that treatment involves. I just put feeders over the lawn, so the mower takes care of any seedlings.
None of the mixes I’ve used (and despite my reservations above, yes, I still do it!) contain peanuts, so I can’t imagine finding a peanut free mix would be difficult. I would imagine that ‘produced in a factory that also handles peanuts’ might be a problem for severely allergic people, so maybe worth checking with any supplier before buying if this is a concern.
I’ve found that the cheaper mixes usually contain larger seeds such as whole wheat that garden birds can’t eat, and this attracts more pidgeons, crows, rats etc that scare off the birds you want to attract.
Finally, keep your bird feeder clean. There have been reports of them being a major cause of the spread of infectious diseases, partly because many different birds congregate there, which wouldn’t happen naturally, and partly because any food that decomposes can spread infection. I strip down and clean ours every week or two.
Again, it’s worth the extra to avoid waste and mess. Even with a metal bin, we had a fox who enjoyed waking us in the early hours dragging it round the garden.
I now buy smaller quantities and keep it indoors. Normal buys are from Home Bargains, premium fatballs, then I make a mix, adding suet pellets and mealworms to robin/songbird mix.
It helps to know your visitors. Local goldfinches and longtailed tits prefer sunflower hearts alone. Dare to put out mealworms alone and starlings will do their best to demolish feeders in their frenzy to get at them. Robins and blackbirds get a treat, any over ripe apples or pears go out.
We have always enjoyed feeding the birds and watching the ever-changing varieties feeding. However, we live in an older neighborhood and for the last 10 years there has been a lot of construction, tearing down older houses and building new. This has caused displacement of critters and we had to stop feeding the birds about 3 years back because of the rats.
We didn’t mind the odd rat coming by, but when I looked out one day and counted 7 rats all eating the fallen seed from the feeder, we had to stop.
It’s a shame, but at least we still get a nice variety of birds at our bird bath.
Bloody rats …
When we lived by the coast we use to feed a lot of wild birds from kookaburras, magpies cockatoos king parrots and rosellas. It’s hard to resist but it’s what you feed them that’s important. Look up what the species eats and stick close to it and avoid sweet things.
I/We are keen birders and that includes garden feeding.
All year round as a general “feed all” we have Sunflower Hearts, plus Nyjer that is Goldfinch specific.
Seeded fat balls all year but best not in the warmer summer months.
Peanuts are a strict no-no in the nesting season, so only from autumn to early spring.
I used caged feeders to fend off pigeons, that also works well with the large local population of jackdaws, but doesn’t stop them trying.
Squirrels are something else, I seem to be winning the battle, but the war goes on. At the moment I use a large wobbly bullet shaped tube that they can’t jump over or grip on to. Vaseline smeared on metal poles is also a good idea & great fun to watch.
Re the course grass, different types so called course meadow grasses can appear in lawns and are different in colour or texture from the rest of the grass.
My problem area is some distance from the bird feeders so I’m not blaming the birds, its called Annual or Rough Meadow Grass, I just keep digging it out with a trowel after a heavy rain and during early winter when the soil is wet, I take a fair junk of root and soil with it and back fill with topsoil, the lawn grass soon spreads over, but a sprinkle of grass seed halps with larger patches.
My experience of rats is that they will only be around your property if there’s a source of food and the small amount of seed on the ground isn’t enough. There will be another bigger source somewhere and if that is taken away, they leave very fast. My source of food was my garage and I didn’t realise. They were everywhere. My feeder hung from a tree with a clear dome protector. This stops rats and squirrels, but I had it hung too close to the trunk and all they did was fling themselves across. I hung it out further on a long branch and that solved that. My feeders have trays under (built-in) and that stops a lot of seed dropping to the ground.
There’s always one who will have reservations about shipping food, blah blah from around the world blah blah carbon bloody footprint blah blah…the reason we humans need to support wildlife in any way possible is because we’ve ruined every little creatures’ habitat in the first place. Except the rat, which is why they love us.
We are fortunate in living close to a red squirrel protected habitat so greys are never seen on the garden feeders.
We put out sunflower hearts, nyjer seed and mixed seed attracting large flocks of goldfinch, chaffinch and greenfinch and in summer many siskin and goldcrest. We get the occasional great spotted woodpecker.
The main risk here is hunting sparrowhawks and despite living amidst a sheep and cattle farm we see few rats.
I just looked up the Roamwild bird feeders and I guess the main thing is that they drop less seed, n’est ce pas? If there’s hardly any seed on the ground below it, then that could work for both myself and a friend of ours who struggles with squirrels and rats.
We get the same the birds as you mentioned, plus a fair few others that seem to happen by on their way north or south we suppose.
We usually buy a songbird mix of bird seed which has a mix of small round yellow seeds plus quite a few sunflower seeds.
Thanks for the tip, Ian, I’ll order one from Amazon and check it out.
I serve up sunflower hearts, whole peanuts(only the best for my pet pigeon), meal worm and wild bird feed.
I only purchase from a local pet shop. Costs a bit more than buying in bulk, but the pet shop provides an important service to a lot of people in the village, so it’s worth supporting.
