Birds love my fat balls.

[Andrew_Culture]

Does anyone else feed their garden birds? I used to have loads of finches and sparrows to feed but now they all appear to have naffed off somewhere else

Has anyone tried making their own fat cakes Blue Peter stylee? The fat balls remain popular, although sometimes with starlings rather than the delicate blue tits they are intended for.

 

[carolonabike]

We feed our birds, they cost us a fortune . We also feed a sparrowawk who does very nicely on our fat birds.
I've tried making fat balls in the past but tbh it's messy, time consuming and I found they preferred the ready made ones. We put out sunflower seeds, niger seeds and meal worms, food odds and ends etc

Your birds have probably been feeding elsewhere, at this time of year there is still a lot of food available. We normally have upwards of a dozen goldfinches but for the past few months we've hardly seen them but I know they'll be back.

Usually we have blue tits, great tits, coal tits, loads of green finches, chaffinch, goldfinch, woodpigeons, robins, sparrows, magpies, jackdaws, starlings who I rather like and of course seagulls which we just have to put up with

 

[Beebo]

Tea spat all over keyboard reading the thread title!

I await a visit of the Mods to tell you to keep the thread clean on a family forum.

 

[Andrew_Culture]

It's the Goldfinches that I miss, I'm sure we used to have about ten pairs feeding off our niger seed feeder, then they just kinda stopped.

Apart from the Goldfinches it's mostly sparrows and chaffinches, although we did get the occasional robin using the seed feeder, which apparently they're not known to do!

 

[Andrew_Culture]

Tea spat all over keyboard reading the thread title!

I await a visit of the Mods to tell you to keep the thread clean on a family forum.

Nah, it's all totally innocent, any crudity is in the eye of the beholder

 

[ColinJ]

Nah, it's all totally innocent, any crudity is in the eye of the beholder

But if the beholder is the forum owner or one of his mods then the point stands!

 

[Glow worm]

="Andrew_Culture, post: 2124479, member: 21241"]It's the Goldfinches that I miss, I'm sure we used to have about ten pairs feeding off our niger seed feeder, then they just kinda stopped.

They must have moved over here as there's no end of them hereabouts! We get all the usual suspects plus reed buntings in winter and whitethroat and blackcaps in summer. Would love to see bullfinches but I suspect they are no longer in this area

 

[fossyant]

I find the birds go mad for meal worms, but finding a cheap source of them isn't easy. You should see the price some shops want.

 

[Andrew_Culture]

I find the birds go mad for meal worms, but finding a cheap source of them isn't easy. You should see the price some shops want.

I get our seed and coconut shells from the local mill, I think they actually dress the grain themselves! We've not tried mealworms as I can't figure out a good way of serving them that wouldn't just double as a serving dish for our three cats.

 

[Andrew_Culture]

They must have moved over here as there's no end of them hereabouts! We get all the usual suspects plus reed buntings in winter and whitethroat and blackcaps in summer. Would love to see bullfinches but I suspect they are no longer in this area

I wonder if the birds are scared of our toddler, the cats are certainly very wary these days.

 

[Maz]

Birds love maggots. Cheeky little birds like to take a few from the bait box when I'm out fishing. The local farm cat has a penchant for luncheon meat, so I chuck him a few cubes.

 

[summerdays]

I've got to find some new places to put my feeders - doesn't seem to be so many good branches here. Bought a new feeder at the weekend but haven't managed to sneak the bird seed past Mr Summerdays (he thinks it's mouse food so isn't so keen!).

 

[rich p]

As was said earlier, tits and finches feed elsewhere when there is an abundance. The blue and great tits have started returning to the garden in the last couple of weeks.The greenfinches, chaffinches and goldfinches will be along sometime soon. The squirrels eat most the fatballs in our garden but the tits eat peanuts from squirrel proof feeders.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

There's no better start to the day than awakening to find my nuts engulfed by great tits.


GC

 

[Marshmallow_Fluff]

I think you have a bit of competition going on! Someone near you is offering better dishes..
Small cuties don't like to compete for food if they can avoid it. Now here's a theory: If a lady next door is offering a mix of sunflower seeds, maize, canary seeds, oatmeal etc, in a small birds feeder (if it's swinging even better), they have no reason to visit your garden.. Swap menu and they'll be back! Sack the chef as well!