I never knew garden birds could be so fussy

[johnnyb47]

Hi,
I've always enjoyed feeding the garden birds but reframed from it a lot when I had my cat.
Sadly now that he's gone I've started to feed them again and it's been really nice to hear the sounds of bird song and to see the garden busy with them splashing in the solar fountain bird bath and feeding frantically from the bird feeder.
Over the last few weeks I've been getting all kinds of birds visiting and thought I would replace the rather tatty bird feeder with a nice new one.
The old one has got 4 outlets at the bottom with a seed catcher on the bottom,while the new one has got no seed catcher but 4 outlets (2 at the bottom and 2 half way up)
I hung the new up in exact the same place and eagerly waited for the birds to come and I got absolutely nothing.
Ok I thought, maybe it takes a little time for the suspicious little buggers to accept the new feeder.
2 days have passed and the garden has fallen silent with no birds to mention , which got me thinking surely a change in a feeder can't be responsible for it?
This morning I decided to try the old one again and low and behold, by the time I got back into the kitchen to put the kettle on the feeder was covered again in birds.
You wouldn't think that such a small thing like a change in bird feeders can determine whether you get success in attracting birds to your garden.
Between the two feeders they hardly look any different but it's surprising how much small birds pick up on the smallest of details.

 

[biggs682]

My late father use to reckon the birds that visited his garden didn't like the bird seed we would get him from B&M at £6.49 and then he would pay £14+ for a bag from local garden centre and still didn't get any more birds visiting..... I do miss him

 

[fossyant]

Same food in both ? Leave both up.

 

[vickster]

Please have a look at the RSPB advice on feeding birds in Spring/summer and how to care for feeders to avoid spread of disease
https://www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happening/news/how-to-help-garden-birds

 

[nogoodnamesleft]

And the disease trichomonosis is not an obscure rare infection. Quite a few years back before it had become so widespread my neighbours were "not very thoughtful" when it came to bird feeding (just try and get small pretty birds in their garden) and I started finding the results.

Back then in the early days I thus participated in a ZSL research project and ended-up sending in dead birds for formal diagnosis and it was confirmed as trichomonosis. And it's not nice and once you start seeing infected birds it's widespread (ie you can't do "I'll feed them until I see an infected bird").

 

[Gillstay]

By the time the bird is ill enough to enable you to catch it, its life is in the balance and very difficult to save.

Tried it with a Hawfinch, but sadly died.

 

[nogoodnamesleft]

By the time the bird is ill enough to enable you to catch it, its life is in the balance and very difficult to save.

Tried it with a Hawfinch, but sadly died.

And it's spread to lots of others

 

[annedonnelly]

I stopped feeding in May as per the new guidance. It's amazing how much fewer birds are coming to the garden but there'll be plenty of natural food available to them and much better that there's a reduced risk of disease.

We need to avoid feeding birds just for our own entertainment and consider their welfare first.