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Goldenmane
Platinum Member

United Kingdom

4964 Posts

Posted - 04 Jan 2015 : 5:26:00 PM

Bird feeders, fat balls, seeds, peanuts. Never had a bird feeder as always had cats but I can see how they become obsessive

I now have a camera by the window and tell my dogs to be quiet when they go out in the garden!

Any tips on other food for birds?

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sab2
Platinum Member

8467 Posts

Posted - 04 Jan 2015 : 5:40:51 PM

I feed our birds all year round, they love dried mealworms , i also buy fat blocks which contain insects which they also enjoy, christmas cake goes down well.My OH,s mum always bakes us a cake and my OH will not tell her we don,t eat it so we share it out between the Chickens, ducks and the wild birds

Fresh fruit can be popular as well, i love watching the birds feeding

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Ziadomira
Platinum Member

England
1635 Posts

Posted - 04 Jan 2015 : 7:55:53 PM

Our lot running into hundreds probably. Most types.
They get all left overs as long as not salty as salt does not do birds good. They have peanuts in a bowl, they come and take a peanut away to eat on a branch. When they have young smash the nuts up so not too big. They use less energy and the numbers we record on the RSPB Bird Count always come up with a response of 'are you sure'. Tits, Chaffinches, Robins, Blackbirds, sparrows, dunnocks, blue jays all eat these. Fat balls are very popular with tits, robins sparrows and chaffinches. Tits are blue, great, coal and long tailed. They all have seed scattered around in certain areas, we buy the stuff that does not include the husks as they mess the garden up. Then there are the Nyger seeds, these are shared by the tits and goldfinches. As the goldfinches are very quarrelsome they need to be away from the other food areas. They are vey wasteful so eat it off the ground as well. Highest count for them is 24 so far, easy to see why a Charm of goldfinches. Birds also have mealworms eaten by blackbirds and robins mainly. We do have wrens that eat the spiders under the holly and the holly berries are eaten by the blackbirds. Cotoneaster and Mistletoe berries get eaten as well. They love apples.
We feed ours twice a day, first thing in the morning and then about two hours before it gets dark to give them time to eat before they sleep. Once you start to feed them you must carry on as it does not do them any good to fly in for a meal and then find the table is bare. Make sure any food that may be on the ground is in the open so they can see a cat if it turns up. They need clean water. Our food bill is quite high.

Edited by - Ziadomira on 04 Jan 2015 7:57:08 PM

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Callisto
Platinum Member

6905 Posts

Posted - 04 Jan 2015 : 8:09:31 PM

ours get suet balls, suet pellets, the husk free bird seed, and mealy worms, they are quite wasteful, as the rooks and starlings tend to scatter it all over the place, but the other birds tend to clear up what falls on the ground. We keep our feeding area away from bushes and lurking places as far as we can, as a number of our neighbours have cats - which is why, sadly, we haven't seen any wrens in our garden in the last 3 years. We have collared doves, a territorial robin, the odd fat wood pigeon, blackbirds, tree creepers, wood peckers, and assorted tits. My husband is much better at identifying them than I am. Unfortunately when we are both away working (like now) we can't feed them, but they soon turn up again as soon as we are home. Our neighbours feed the birds too, so they don't have very far to go for an alternative food source.