Feeding wild birds

[Lurker]

At our new house, we have a Victorian cemetery and school playing field on two sides. A four meter bifold door overlooks the garden, so I have taken to feeding birds that I can watch from the sofa.

I had a two month war with grey squirrels as they just laughed at my squirrel proof feeders.
I have partly won by fixing a thin wire between the garden store and a tree and hanging the feeders “washing line style from this.

I bulk bought mixed seeds, fat balls and whole peanuts; but the clear favourite (and most expensive) is sunflower hearts.

Anyone else do this or am I turning into a sad old man.

 

[Andy Kev.]

I think it's fine thing to do.

One thing that my mother always did with her bird table was to also put fried bacon rinds on it (she didn't like the rind and so removed it after grilling/frying the rinds). It was remarkable to see how many kinds of birds which you would have thought were vegetarian loved it. And I suppose that at this time of the year, such a fatty, high energy food would be particularly of benefit. And it saves wasting bacon rind if you don't eat it.

One thing that birds need most when its very cold is water. If you can put water out in the morning at a temp which is high enough for it to stay liquid for a while, they will be very glad of it. Apparently a lot of people don't think or know about that.

 

[Cabinetman]

A little effort will pay back enormously for your entertainment, but just don’t stop as the birds will come to rely on you. I remember quite a few years ago there was a programme on television – quite a few episodes of squirrels overcoming all efforts to defeat them, in the end it was a case of almost training/testing the squirrels to see how they could get past the defences, Ian

 

[Woodster]

We have been feeding birds in the gardens of out various houses for very many years. We feed them good quality mixed seed. We avoid any seed that has wheat or sunflower seed with the husk still on. We get through a lot of suet pellets as well as they are popular with all birds. We even had a Herring Gull come down the other day. We also have the entertainment value of the squirrels as well. Sometimes they eat from the seed feeder but they aren’t a bother. I made a table for them and they get various nuts as available.

 

[AndyP]

keep it up. we've been doing it for years. fatballs, peanuts and sunflower seeds. We grow our own sunflowers just for this purpose, never enough though.
Blue Tits
Great Tits
house Sparrows
robins
Long Tailed tits
Ring necked doves
Nuthatch
great spotted woodpecker

to name but a few

 

[sunnybob]

At our new house, we have a Victorian cemetery and school playing field on two sides. A four meter bifold door overlooks the garden, so I have taken to feeding birds that I can watch from the sofa.

I had a two month war with grey squirrels as they just laughed at my squirrel proof feeders.
I have partly won by fixing a thin wire between the garden store and a tree and hanging the feeders “washing line style from this.

I bulk bought mixed seeds, fat balls and whole peanuts; but the clear favourite (and most expensive) is sunflower hearts.

Anyone else do this or am I turning into a sad old man.

Sad. definitely.
I 'spect theres a bottle of beer next to the settee? and a small glass? :lol:

I think back to 50 pus years ago, when nobody fed wild birds, what fields werent beirng built on were covered in toxic chemicals, hedges were being dug up at incredible rates and the smog made flying impossible. Did you know there were more birds then than there are now?
youre making them all soft and forget how to scavenge their own. :eusa-naughty: :eusa-whistle:

But I do like the wall mounted picnic table. :eusa-clap: :eusa-clap:

 

[Dr.Al]

What with covid, I'm now working from home full-time, using our dining room as an office. We've put to poles up in the garden outside the dining room window with suet cakes, sunflower hearts, mixed seeds, niger seeds, peanuts, suet balls, mealworms and a stuffed coconut thing (along with a couple of buckets of water that we break the ice off each morning). We also thrown some mealworms onto the lawn.

I really enjoy looking out of the window (especially during the more boring meetings :eusa-shifty: ) and watching the birds in the garden.

We've got loads of house sparrows (they go for the mixed seeds and sunflower hearts), robins (sunflower hearts and mealworms), starlings (mealworms), pied wagtails (mealworms on the lawn), dunnocks (seeds dropped by the other birds), coal tits (sunflower hearts), blue tits (sunflower hearts and suet cakes) long-tailed tits (ditto), blackbirds (mealworms on the lawn), jackdaws (everything they can get at) and pigeons (ditto). Probably some others I've forgotten as well.

I love watching the mannerisms of the tits (especially the coal tits), although they haven't visited for a few days now so I'm hoping they're okay!

 

[Dr.Al]

What with covid, I'm now working from home full-time, using our dining room as an office. We've put to poles up in the garden outside the dining room window with suet cakes, sunflower hearts, mixed seeds, niger seeds, peanuts, suet balls, mealworms and a stuffed coconut thing (along with a couple of buckets of water that we break the ice off each morning). We also thrown some mealworms onto the lawn.

I really enjoy looking out of the window (especially during the more boring meetings :eusa-shifty: ) and watching the birds in the garden.

We've got loads of house sparrows (they go for the mixed seeds and sunflower hearts), robins (sunflower hearts and mealworms), starlings (mealworms), pied wagtails (mealworms on the lawn), dunnocks (seeds dropped by the other birds), coal * (sunflower hearts), blue * (sunflower hearts and suet cakes) long-tailed * (ditto), blackbirds (mealworms on the lawn), jackdaws (everything they can get at) and pigeons (ditto). Probably some others I've forgotten as well.

I love watching the mannerisms of the * (especially the coal *), although they haven't visited for a few days now so I'm hoping they're okay!

Apparently a certain family of birds isn't acceptable to the rude word filter!

 

[Robert]

We (mostly me as it is cold outside) feed the birds.

in our experience the least popular food is mixed bird seed. Fat balls are not too interesting either.

Sunflower kernels get some interest but the runaway favourite food is Wilco's berry flavour fat pellets. we get through several 12kg boxes of the stuff a year.

https://www.wilko.com/en-uk/wilko-wild- ... /p/0455415

Wilco do blocks and sticks of the stuff too and they go down well also.

I beat the squirrels by drilling a hole in a large plant pot saucer and mounting it on the pole of our free standing feeder about a metre up. The upside down saucer is loosely mounted so if it jumps onto the edge the saucer tips and there is nothing mr grey can grip onto. does scare the birds away when it flaps in the wind but not a problem that often.

 

[Mike G]

When we first moved into this house, we had only 2 bird species visit the garden (pigeon and crow) in the first year. Now, after planting a garden, digging a pond, and feeding continuously and assiduously, we've got over 60 species on our birding list. Because of changes in farming practise, birdfeeders in domestic gardens are a really important part the survival of many species.

 

[AJB Temple]

We feed year round, including the ground feeding birds. We get raptors as well now. Fat balls are very popular but different birds like different things. We also have a large number of bird boxes up.

Grey squirrels do huge harm. They attack the nests in spring and summer and kill birds that we are trying to save. They also strip the bark off young trees. They breed rapidly. Therefore, we log the typical grey squirrel runs and trap them in baited cages. They are then dispatched humanely. We also remove the drays from surrounding trees.

I know there is an eco system and that magpies and woodpeckers raid nests too, but squirrels are so destructive we've come to see them as vermin.

 

[Mike G]

......... Fat balls are very popular......

Yep, our rats absolutely love them. We've had to give them up.

 

[AJB Temple]

We had that problem too for a while. Birds discard a lot of stuff or drop it accidentally. Small bird apparently judge whether seed husks are worth the energy use to open them, and they discard ones that weigh too little. The ground feeders get these.

We feed fat balls over a table now that rats can't easily get to, but the dropped scraps don't last long anyway as the blackbirds move in pronto.

 

[AndyP]

We feed year round, including the ground feeding birds. We get raptors as well now. Fat balls are very popular but different birds like different things. We also have a large number of bird boxes up.

Grey squirrels do huge harm. They attack the nests in spring and summer and kill birds that we are trying to save. They also strip the bark off young trees. They breed rapidly. Therefore, we log the typical grey squirrel runs and trap them in baited cages. They are then dispatched humanely. We also remove the drays from surrounding trees.

I know there is an eco system and that magpies and woodpeckers raid nests too, but squirrels are so destructive we've come to see them as vermin.

We only get Reds here. A rarity in the garden.

 

[Lurker]

Treated myself to this.
I have some excellent binoculars, but I now have a dodgy eye, so this seemed to be an alternative.

 

[AndyP]

here's our birding list

Buzzard * flew overhead
Goldfinch
Tawny owl
Cormorant * Flew overhead
Starling
Kestrel
Treecreeper
Mistle Thrush
Heron * Flew overhead
White stork * Flew overhead
Swallow
Blackbird
Long tailed tit
Blue tit
Great tit
Marsh tit
House sparrow
Greater spotted woodpecker
Green woodpecker
Magpie
Chafffinch
Bullfinch
Wood pigeon
Robin
Collared dove
Wren
Sparrow Hawk
Greenfinch
Pied Wagrtail
Mallard Duck
Carrion crow
Pheasant
Jay
Woodcock

And mammals list
Red Squirrel
Hedgehog
Stoat
Shew
Pipistrelle bat
Field Mouse
Mole * found dead.
Rat * found dead
Hare * in field next door
Rabbit * found dead
Beech or Pine Marten

 

[RogerS]

SWMBO feeds them fat balls, raisins (blackbirds love those), mealy worms (IIRC). No grey squirrels (anymore :twisted: )

 

[Woodbloke]

Grey squirrels do huge harm. They attack the nests in spring and summer and kill birds that we are trying to save. They also strip the bark off young trees. They breed rapidly. Therefore, we log the typical grey squirrel runs and trap them in baited cages. They are then dispatched humanely. We also remove the drays from surrounding trees.

I know there is an eco system and that magpies and woodpeckers raid nests too, but squirrels are so destructive we've come to see them as vermin.

They do indeed and I despise the things, but apparently once humanely despatched they make very good eating. So I'm told.

......... Fat balls are very popular......

Yep, our rats absolutely love them. We've had to give them up.

...and this is the reason that SWIMBO, although she has a soft spot for all wildlife, including birds, won't entertain under any circumstances (and I have tried to persuade her) the idea of bird feeders in the garden - Rob

 

[Alasdair]

Perhaps you need to get more creative https://youtu.be/hFZFjoX2cGg

 

[wallace]

We have a largish koi pond and noticed the birds taking the pellets from the surface. We started leaving some in a dish soaked in a bit water for them. We had a blackbirds nest on a light at the front door. The parent birds reared there chicks on high protein fish pellets. Then the fledglings were taught where to find the pellets. Its strange that if there was no pellets I'm sure the birds would look into the kitchen window indicating they wanted some.
Have you ever seen a rat do a belly flop into a bond to get pellets. It does look funny but it tells me when I need to put some poison out.
My father in law used to spend a fortune on various seeds for birds, from niger seed sacks of sunflower hearts

 

[9fingers]

I've had a single hanging feeder for a few years now holds about 400gms of seeds. Sometimes this will only last 2 days other times about 5 days but in this exceptionally cold weather the level has hardly moved in days.
Do the birds hunker down when its really cold? I'd have though they would have to eat all the more to keep warm?

Bob

 

[wallace]

I think one of the most important things for wild birds at this time of year is water. I have a little ornamental pond with a waterfall which I leave running over the winter to stop it freezing. The amount of birds using it is unreal. Bizarrely some long tailed tits were bathing in the flowing water. The temp was minus 4

 

[jimmy s]

We feed ours as well, just humphed a 25kg sack of peanuts into the utility room yesterday as we were running low.

Bird wise, pretty similar to everyone else. We've had a buzzard up in the beech trees lately looking for prey. We have a few tawny owls, a few robins overwintering, We have a bunch of herons which nest nearby each year, I thought I heard them last week but may be wrong -they make a fair racket at times.

We had some fieldfares in the garden last week, some years we get the odd red squirrel but haven't seen any this winter.

 

[AJB Temple]

Yes, water is key. We have a large stone pool with a Japanese bamboo spout that normally runs year round but we have had minus 7 here and even that has frozen as has the surface of the stream that runs beside our garden. All of our ponds have frozen and the koi pond is covered, so we are putting water bowls out. I think the big freeze is due to end in Kent tomorrow.