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Bird feeders and feed

Agreed Bob, some of them definitely get used to you. I have a small cohort of male Sparrows who stay at the watering stations when I appear and the other birds scatter, or maybe they’re short sighted..
 
Some species just seem to be much less concerned about 'us'. Here, Long tailed tits are maybe the bravest, only beaten by baby blackbirds, and Robins in winter. (In spring when nesting they all become far more wary).
Pigeons are the worlds thickest birds, and the crow family (Corvidae) the most intelligent.
 
an interesting discussion on feeding suet based food to wild birds
https://www.bto.org/how-you-can-help/providing-birds/feeding-garden-birds/fat-based-foods
Rockmeister said:
Some species just seem to be much less concerned about 'us'. Here, Long tailed tits are maybe the bravest, only beaten by baby blackbirds, and Robins in winter. (In spring when nesting they all become far more wary).
Pigeons are the worlds thickest birds, and the crow family (Corvidae) the most intelligent.
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Ihave to disagree about pigeons in so far they are the least fearful of humans as indicated by the one time Trafalgar Sqr ritual feeding?
 
Certainly urban pigeons are generally relaxed around people, we have Wood pigeons which are more skittish for sure. That’s the link I’d read earlier, work in progress.
 
We have wood pigeons in our garden, we also have urban pigeons that are much more aggressive, chasing the wood pigeons off.
 
If you want squirrels to leave your seed alone a tip I heard was to dust it with hot pepper flakes/powder as birds do not have much in the way of taste buds but squirrels certainly do!
Our resident Robin will happily eat his own body weight in mealworms
 
billo said:
If you want squirrels to leave your seed alone a tip I heard was to dust it with hot pepper flakes/powder as birds do not have much in the way of taste buds but squirrels certainly do!
Our resident Robin will happily eat his own body weight in mealworms
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many of the cheap squirrel proof feeders use a cage that is too small and further more the ports with the alighting thing are made of plastic that the squirrels will gnaw away rendering the feeder useless. I bought one with a much bigger cage and metal ports
 
This is our bird feeder I made that is attached to a pergola post outside our French windows.The roofing felt covered roof keeps the contents dry.
The mesh basket came with a saucepan my wife bough that she didn't need. It can be removed for cleaning by unscrewing the clamp attached to the bar. The bar also prevents any bird bigger than a blackbird getting in there. It's also shared by two squirrels. As it is filled with kibbled peanuts, suet pellets, dried meal worms and bits of fat balls every day, there's no squabbling. The blackbirds, sparrows, blue tits and squirrels take turns.

 
Thanks guys, we don’t get grey squirrels here, Red ones are mainly in the the West of the Island and are a treat to watch. I need to build a wire box and house everything within. The bigger birds are just too tenacious/ voracious to leave anything in the open..
 
foxwelljsly said:
FWIW, I bought some Niger thistle seed and dedicated feeder for the Goldfinches and other small garden birds we see a lot of here and it hasn’t had so much as a nibble. If anyone has any suggestions as to what to do with 5kg of Niger thistle seed, I’m all ears.
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I had great success with niger seeds and goldfinches at a previous house ... in your case either they haven't discovered it yet, or there is a preferable food source near by. Don't give up! At my new house I have lots of goldfinches in the weeds in the scruffy "building site" area of my garden .... but they won't go near my niger feeder! I even tied teasels to it to tempt them!
 
We put out Niger and almost immediately we had goldfinches attending - who completely ignored the Niger but devoured the sunflower kernels instead!
 
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