Birds being fussy with feeders?

[Oystercatcher]

Heya all

I'm new so don't bite

I've been feeding the birds in our garden for about a year now. I hang four feeders up, spaced out nicely, in a willow tree we have - niger seed (which never gets touched and will be removed), peanuts (which also never get touched) and a general seed mix.

We mainly get sparrows but recently thanks to grabbing hold of some premium sunflower hearts, we've had blue tits and goldfinches feasting away!

As the number of birds using the feeders was growing I invested in a Droll Yankee A6 feeder, which is aluminium and has six feeding ports, and a seed tray to attach to the bottom in an effort to avoid spillages etc.

At the moment it's filled with some general seed mix.

This has been hung high in the tree for four days now and none of the birds will go near it or feed from it - and I'm wondering why?

Have I made a mistake buying such a large and silver feeder?

Thanks for any help!

[Pigeon feather]

Hiya Ostercatcher, nice name by the way promise I don't bite! I don't think you've made a mistake in buying the feeder, it's still early days yet and birds are naturally cautious of new things, it took the ones in my garden about a week to realise the bird table I had put up was infact a source of food and not a threat! If no birds visit it for two weeks perhaps remove it and place it somewhere else although i'm sure they will, just give them time

[Gill Catton]

plus the countryside is stuffed full of invertebrates at the moment and this tends to be what baby birds get fed so birds are less reliant on feeders in gardens.

[Oystercatcher]

Thanks both of you for your replies

I've had an awful lot of Goldfinches on the feeders in the past two days, such beautiful birds

I'll give the new feeder another week or so to become a little weathered, and to rid itself of the human smell

[Dogghound]

yeh i second what Gill says, im sure in the winter months when food is in short supply your feeder will be busy with alsorts of birds. Welcome to the site

[The Black Rabbit]

Strange your niger seed is ignored. We have niger seed and sunflower hearts. Bullfinches (much to my shame - I'd told my girlfriend that we shouldn't expect them at a feeder), Greenfinches and Goldfinches cannot get enough of either of them!

[Oystercatcher]

It's the same with the peanuts too - totally ignored, even by the tits, in favour of the sunflower hearts

[theanimallover]

Hi
Same here, we've lived here for about 9 years. At first I fed the birds nuts and niger feed and seed...but only the seed was getting eaten. The nuts just went soggy and the niger seed like yours totally ignored!
I now feed them rspca or BSA approved mixture. We too have got tonnes of sparrows! I counted over 40 in our 10 foot front garden! Over the years especially the past year, we have had a few new visitors, a couple of blue tits who seem to love the pink bits (don't ask -they are in the current mix we have, could be some sort of fat - they spit the other stuff out and go for the pink).

I don't think you're doing anything wrong either, they'll get used to it, perhaps refresh the seeds, and don't fill right up so you won't waste too much...just a thought...

[Oystercatcher]

Heya and cheers to everyone for your replies.

Yeah I made the mistake of filling the new feeder up to the top before I hung it up. It's been out in the storms we've had here too. So I'll have a peek at the condition of the seed later and check it's not damp or too old.

Just now there were a couple of sparrows on it, so maybe they're getting used to it after all....

We have tonnes of sparrows here too. In fact over the last week or so we've had the parents feeding the young birds on the branches around the feeder - quite lovely to watch

My bird table is also under siege with starlings at the moment, both adults and very young birds.

[smartie]

I'm finding the absolute favourites at present are the fat block feeders. They offer a pit stop for busy adults, and something they can feed the youngsters on - especially when the weather is poor. They are also an easy meal for the youngsters when they are pushed off on their own, as the blue and great tit chicks have now been. Even the young robins are having a go at them, and a couple of woodpeckers have become regular visitors. If I put the remains of a chewed fat block on the bird table, the magpies are quick to take as many bits as they can cram in their beaks.

[Oystercatcher]

Just an update really - I checked the seed mix last night and the wind and driving rain had soaked it.

So I've cleaned the feeder and filled it with sunflower hearts now.

Today we've had greenfinches and goldfinches on it, and even a cheeky starling trying to land on it. But the sparrows still totally refuse to go near it

[theanimallover]

Naughty sparrows are probably feeding elsewhere!
A few years back our sparrows seemed to be disappearing. Then I noticed they were still about but a few metres down the hedge.They used to be right outside our house for years, always sitting and rustling in the hedge.
Anyway, I looked down the hedge to where the sparrows were and my neighbour had started to feed them too!
To keep up with the jones's I got some better feed (lol)...they've not strayed again.

[Elizabeth B]

The goldfinches here soon empty the hearts feeders, with some help from bullfinches and great tits - the mixed seed feeder only gets used when there is no room on the hearts. I'm kept busy making suet blocks which go down very rapidly at the moment - this feeder attracts bluetits, great tits, robins and a nuthatch, and yesterday we were delighted to see this family of great tits. We like to think these are the 6 youngsters that fledged just over a week ago from the nearby nestbox, with their parents.

[Elizabeth B]

Originally Posted by Elizabeth B

We like to think these are the 6 youngsters that fledged just over a week ago from the nearby nestbox, with their parents.

Ooops!!!! How on earth could I have made this error???? They fledged just over four weeks ago.

[Oystercatcher]

Fantastic picture Elizabeth, cheers for posting it

We've had one or two great tits on the feeders today, and some very young blue tits.