Bird feeder preference

[lucy78green]

I posted about this in the Hello section but I probably should have put it here!
I live in Belfast in an Urban area but near several large parks and playing fields. Our garden is very small but we get a lot of birds and there's a few grey squirrels running around too.
I've put lots of fat balls and three bird feeders on our magnolia tree. All the birds seem to favour one of the feeders. One feeder is green wire mesh with peanuts in it (not much eaten out of it), and two are plastic with a mixture of wild bird seed and mealy worms in it. The birds all prefer one of the plastic ones, but the only difference that I can think of is that the opening is red plastic while the less popular one is green. Do birds associate the colour red more with food as both the plastic feeders have the same mix in them. I have to refill the red one every other day, but the other one is hardly touched and I end up tipping the food from it into the other one. I tried placing them beside each other on the same branch to see if it was the location but same result.
We mostly get blackbirds, tits, robins, and starlings (which bully the rest).

[dmclean2]

Hi! Lucy,
And welcome to WAB,
In answer to your question , yes birds do differenciate between colours, and you will find different species going to the red one , it also depends on where you hang the feeders, and if they feel safe at that particular one as opposed to the green one,
There will be others who will give you more information on this subject in a little while, enjoy the site and hope to hear from you again.
Duncan,

[JeffH]

Hi Lucy, the apparent preference by some birds for red feeders is thought by some observers to originate from when peanut feeding first started in the UK and when the peanuts were hung up in red netting feeders

Jeff

[lucy78green]

Thankyou both, I was debating buying some red paint and painting the wire mesh feeder and the other plastic one. The starlings are the only ones that eat the peanuts, but when we used to have the red plastic mesh feeders the tits loved them. All the birds go to the plastic feeder with the red opening, but only one tit uses the green one. the Robin just hops around eating the scraps off the ground. The starlings though tend to gang up on the other birds and chase them all away

[lucy78green]

OK it took me ages to work out how to do photos. My camera is rubbish and it's through glass so the computer reflected in the glass, but here's the tree. I had one of the feeders higher up near the window, but that's the one they don't use so I moved it beside the other one. They're all pretty low but beside a hedge (the robin is hopping around the ground)

[lucy78green]

I added red electrical tape around the base of the bird feeder, and around the openings in green bird feeder. I didn't get home from work until just before sunset, and I wont be home until late tomorrow, so I'll have to judge success on food levels. Might take the birds a few days to notice. I couldn't find any suitable non toxic paint