Bird Feeding Stations?

[davetee]

Just interested - how many of you have bird feeding stations in your garden, what food do you leave out and what birds have visited this year. Mine below.

Feed: Mixed Wild Bird Seed, Peanut Feeder, Fat Balls (no jokes please), Suet Treats

Birds seen: Blue Tits, Great Tits, Goldfinches, Greenfinch, Magpies, Starlings, Collared Doves

[Pigeon feather]

I have a bird table with mixed wild bird seed on it then attached to it a seed feeder with black sunflowers, another feeder with beef dripping that the starlings love! I also have two coconut halves attached to shrubs filled with semolina and mashed potato ( I made a bit too much the other night! )
The birds I have visiting at the moment are collared doves, starlings, sparrows, dunnocks a blue tit and a robin, although I'm sure I saw a long-tailed tit on the table the other day and I do occasionally get greenfinches too

[ChrisJB]

I use pretty much the same, but also sunflower hearts, which is the best food of the lot. I also use a 'ground blend' and sultanas, which keeps the 'thrushy - type' birds happy.

I seem to get all the common stuff, but more unusual visitations I've had are, Siskins, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Bramblings and Reed Buntings.

Regards, Chris

[geordie graham]

I have two feeders with sunflower hearts and a tray with Bill Oddie general seed mix and sunflowers.I also have a fat ball feeder.Sometimes I put out baked potato with some marge soaked in.The main visitors are Goldfinches and Greenfinches with the odd blue tit, willow tit,and Robin.Ran out of hearts once and put out normal sunflowers and Goldfinches/greenfinches wouldn`t touch them.Spoilt or what.

Graham

[Ollie]

I have three feeders with mixed seed in, two niger feeders. peanut feeder which is not often touched. Fat balls, coconut half filled with fat and seed mix. Two more fat blocks in hangers. A hanging table on which there is Robin and Wren mix, sunflower hearts, raisins, suet based insect pellets, dried meal worms and any other bits such as grated cheese etc.

Birds visiting regularly are Collared Dove, Robin, Wren, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Blue Tit, Greenfinch, House Sparrow, Starling, Dunnock, Blackbird.

Occasional or one off visitors have been ChiffChaff, Goldfinch, Long Tailed Tit, Tree Sparrow, Great Spotted Woodpecker.

Roger

[stephen p]

I have a Bird table with Mixed seed on it and Sunflower Hearts I have to fill that every day!!
Also a Bird Feeder station with a Sunflower seed feeder, Mixed seed tray, Peanut feeder and a Fat filled Coconut.
On the fence in the bushes and by the oak tree i have a Large wooden peanut feeder which they love. And last two Wood log fat feeder in the tree

This year we have had:
Bull Finch
Green Finch
Collared Doves
Wood Pigeons
Starlings
Blue Tits
Coal Tits
Wrens
Blackcaps
Robins
House Sparrow
Black Birds
Magpie
And a Grey Heron on the Roof

Still waiting for a Woodpecker thats the one i want to see in the Garden.

[galanthus]

Hanging from my Rowan I have a sunflower seed feeder, sunflower heart feeder, 2 peanut feeders, fat ball hangers and later will have fat blocks. I also have a ground table which has nuts, sunflower hearts, robin mix, dried mealworms, suet insect/berry pellets and the odd bit of grated cheese, scraps etc. I also throw around 7 apples a week onto the, (now a little shabby after building work ) lawn. Berried trees include pyrocantha; cotoneaster;hawthorn;rowan.

My gorgeous customers are Coal tits, long-tailed tits, blue tits and great tits; feisty yet loveable robin; male and female and juv blackbirds; dunnocks;chaffinches;greenfinches;wren;bullfinches ; Thrush and sparrowhawk on occasion but usually am in work and miss it Oh and nuisance jackdaws

[Muggsy]

does nobody here have problems with Ring Necked Parrakeets ?

I cant have a feeding station these days, cant afford it actually, the ring necks are so numerous they can consume 15lb of peanuts daily

[John]

I have four feeding stations with bird tables at three of them. My main feed is Sunflower hearts but I also use a premium seed mix that has a large variety of good seed as well as meal worm mixed in. I also use Peanut and kibbled peanut (crushed), Nyger seed, fat balls plus I make my own concoction from lard, Porridge oats, all the seeds I have mixed up plus in the winter I add mixed fruit to it. It gets ladelled out into Coconut shells and I use the plastic trays that the suet blocks come in to form a square so I can put it into the square suet block cages. It doesn't last long.

I also have a pond and a stream I have built where a lot of birds come to bathe.

I have only lived here three years but I have had a wide variety since I set up the feeding stations. My main visitors are:

Goldfinch
Greenfinch,
Chaffinch
Blue Tit,
Great Tit
Sparrow
Blackbird
Robin
Dunnock
Wren
Starling
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Collared Dove
Wood Pigeon
Magpie
Jackdaw
Sparrowhawk (sits in the tree amongst the feeders)
I had a pair of Bullfinch this year on a daily basis for three months.

Occasional visitors:
Green Woodpecker (on a daily basis at some times in the year)
Coal Tit
Willow Tit
Long-tailed Tit (at times quite often then blank periods)
Brambling
Siskin
Reed Bunting
Blackcap
Chiffchaff
Crow
Grey Heron
Mistle Thrush
Song Thrush
Grey Wagtail
Pied Wagtail

Single visits have been

Whitethroat
Goldrcrest
Treecreeper
Nuthatch

Most bizarre in the garden (or should I say house)

Mallard (landed on my roof and stayed there for most of the day)

I also had a Little Owl fly above my head at 00:10 on 06/08/2007. That would have been an unexpected visitor to my garden. Oh well, I can only hope that it decides to land one day where my security lights can pick it up.

John

[davetee]

John...nice idea about doing your own concoctions. I just gave it a try...be interesting to see any results. Used beef dripping as the base added wild bird mix, nyger seed, sunflower hearts, variety of kibbled nuts, blueberries, goji berries and raisins - put it into one of those shallow plastic storage containers and let it set in the fridge then put a 3rd of it onto a bird feeding tray.

[John]

Good luck with it Dave, although I would have found some way to hang some of it from the branches so that the small birds, like Blue Tits, can feed on it better.

If you haven't anything to hand then perhaps an old margarine tub (or something like it) would suffice. Put a hole in it near to the top. Tie some string through it then creating a loop pass it over a branch and let it hang. You could stick a thick twig into it which creates a perch for the birds.

John

Originally Posted by davetee

John...nice idea about doing your own concoctions. I just gave it a try...be interesting to see any results. Used beef dripping as the base added wild bird mix, nyger seed, sunflower hearts, variety of kibbled nuts, blueberries, goji berries and raisins - put it into one of those shallow plastic storage containers and let it set in the fridge then put a 3rd of it onto a bird feeding tray.

[trampas45]

I have 8 feeding stations, some are shop bought and others I have made myself.
I use sunflower hearts, nuts, wild bird seed, fatty balls and a concoction of my own for my handbuilt feeders. This is a mixture of lard, groubd up sunflower hearts, ground up nuts, wild mix and sometimes raisins. They can't get enough of it at this time of the year.
I have been visited by,
Goldfinches,
Blue tits,
Coal tits,
Great tits,
Starlings,
Greenfinches,
Dunnocks,
House sparrows,
Pied wagtails.

[davetee]

Great idea John..thanks...I'll try that!

[ColonelBlimp]

I've got one of those Gardman feeding Poles, with a niger seed feeder, a peanut feeder, two sunflower seed feeders, and a fat ball feeder. I've also got a CJ Wildbird Food open top bird table, on which I put a mix of sultanas, kibbled peanuts, and mealworms.

Birds I have seen regularly around it:
Great Tits
Blue Tits
Coal Tits
Long-Tailed Tits
House Sparrows
Starlings
Wrens
Robins (specifically poor little one-legged "Hoppy")
Greenfinches
Dunnocks
Chaffinches
Blackbirds
Bullfinches

Less often:
Goldfinches
Greater Spotted Woodpecker (used to come practically every day, but when I expanded the variety and quantity of food available it got upset and now comes less often if at all)

Once:
Sparrowhawk (but probably more often)

[rainmaker]

Only really got it going full on this year, so still getting more visitors as the year goes by. Got fat ball feeder, mixed seed, sunflower seeds, niger & peanuts. And a homemade watering station made out of some old canes and a plastic plant water dish (the thing that sits under the plant pot!).

Blue tit
Great tit
Coal tit
Starlings
Collared doves
Wood pigeons
magpies
Pair of nuthatches - beautiful little terrors
Robins
Greenfinch
Wrens
Dunnocks
Blackbirds*
A shower of sparrows - tinkers the lot 'em, but sit and chatter beautifully, bicker maniacally. Usually a minimum of 20 hanging around!


*(had a nesting pair in spring in our huge clematis, but the female was very young, I think, and never came back one day - the male spent the next month singing his little heart out from out TV aerial..). Also, was woken up one Sunday whilst she was still around, by her alarm call, to find a flock of magpies raiding the nest - scared them off, and put up some meshing around - she was well happy for a short while )

[ron1863]

We have one but there is a rookery just up the road and they eat everything they can get their beaks on.