Food on the bird table.

[bedver]

Hi brianwaugh,
Thanks for the advice. I do try and buy good quality birdfood. I haven't tried the sliced apples and sultanas -will do that later. Will the blackbirds get through the mesh? I am reluctant to remove it as it will certainly attract wood pigeons and magpies (which I don't want visiting the table).
Dave.

[brianwaugh]

depends on size of your mesh ! you should really have a table meshed off to allow only small birds thro and if possible a near ground open table for the blackbirds / starlings doves and pigeons, trouble with this is that you may have problems with squirrels. I don't get them in my area so have an open table topped up during the day, I try not to leave much food on this table overnight to keep down mice rats etc. Although I have had a hedgehog curled up fast asleep on it one morning.

[dragonfly]

ITS a good idea to put some food away from the bird tabel as well as some birds are more reluctant to feed in a crowd if want a type of bird say a say blue tit hangers are better finches need hangers with smaller holes to feed from
but remember never put hole peanuts or bread as both do more harm than good

[GME]

Originally Posted by bedver

Hi brianwaugh,
Yes, I thought I was a rather dumb question -however I had to ask it !!
I have only recently put up the table (about a week so far), and it is attracting the tits mainly.
Dave.

Hi Dave,
Sorry - forgot to say welcome to the site before! No question is dumb if you don't know the answer. Feel free to ask away, everyone on here is friendly and more than willing to help if they can

Some good advice on the feeding, and as has been said, it can get expensive. I'm sure if you get as much joy from seeing birds in your garden as it sounds like and as much as everyone posting here, you won't mind paying it. I would also recommend raisins or sultanas but I would just scatter a few on the ground, lawn or get a really low table to chuck them on as the blackbirds, etc will prefer to feed that way.

I have 2 feeders for mixed seed that the sparrows love, 2 for sunflower hearts that everything loves (Greenfinch, tits, goldfinch, etc), one for niger seed (goldfinch), one for a sunflower heart and niger mix that I throw together that allsorts seem to like, 2 for peanuts, 2 for fat balls and 2 for suet blocks. I also have 3 tables and a couple of feeding stations with water and mini tables so you might think I get a bit obsessed! Lol. But the birds seem to swarm around them and I really enjoy watching them so I don't care What I'm getting at is that in my experience the more variety, the more birds. Different methods/ foods attract different species, so have a think what you want to attract and put that style out. I have got best results for Robins with mealworms and table mix put out on any of the tables. I also use a live-food feeder for live mealworms that they love but don't always have the time to get to the shop to stock up so make do with the dried. Let us know how you get on

Gareth

[Rob_D]

Originally Posted by brianwaugh

quote...
My robins have no fear of going thro mesh to get at foods and its the best way to feed mealworms, otherwise the lager louts, the Starlings just wolf them down and leave nothing. Beware tho regular feeding of birds is expensive , good seeds are not cheap these days.

What is the right size mesh is right for robins, but keeps starlings out?

[witham]

Starlings can get through quite small mesh as I found out when I put a cage to deter the larger birds on the floor for the ground feeders and have occasionally had to rescue a Starling that has managed to squeeze into it but not been able to get out after filling itself up, the squares are about 1 1/4 inches, a Starling may be a bigger as in longer bird but perhaps not much fatter if at all in some cases. We have a couple of feeding stations with seed trays which the Robins like to eat off, I mix wild bird seed with Blackbird and Robin food and they seem to like it, I also put some of the dried mealworms which arn't very appetising for them in the water tray to soften them up and the Robins will fish them out