Best Bird seeds?

[BugBear99]

Just realised I posted this on the wrong bit of forum, so here it is in the right place....

Would appreciate any advice on bird seed...I live in East London, and over the last 18months have transformed an overgrown nettle-strewn small garden into a wildlife haven (well, nearly - just the pond is half-built, the rest is there!). Over those 18m the birds visiting my garden have gradually increased in number/variety. Started with pigeons (!), starlings, blue tits, great tits. Now add to that robins, rare wren (my favourite), blackbird, long-tailed tits (missing currently but frequent in winter on fat balls), house sparrows, and more recently green finches and (hoorah, another favourite!) a juvenile goldfinch. Oh and the occasional hungry sparrowhawk.

I feed fat-balls throughout the year, which are popular with the blue/great/longtailed tits, sparrows & starlings. For the last 5m I have used a 'native finch seed' (Haith's; includes hemp seeds & niger seeds) in my giant seed feeder, because I wanted to try a seed mix without sunflower seeds, otherwise my garden gets overrun with squirrels, and also because I thought this might attract much-wanted goldfinches. To begin with this wasn't very popular, but now it's moderately popular with the sparrows, greenfinches and great tits (and the juvenile goldfinch but haven't seen him recently), but I was wondering what everyone's 'must-haves' are in their seed mix? Living where I do, I want to try and maximise the attraction from native finch species, and be less attractive to starlings (!), squirrels and pigeons (yeah, tricky!). And I am desperate to get regular goldfinches to visit!!!

Should I continue with the seed mix I have got?! Does anyone else use it? Is there anything else I should add/do? I notice a lot of you have sunflower seeds, should I add these to my native finch mix so they are in my big 12-hole seed feeder too?

Oh forgot to add I have also used Bill Oddie's softbill food (also Haiths) on the ground/table, but there seems to be quite a bit of wastage of this.

[Cowgirl]

Hi BugBear, welcome to WAB. You sound as though you've put a lot of work in to your garden, well done you. Someone more expert will probably be along to give you more advice, but my goldfinches can't get enough of niger seed. I feed it pure, in a niger seed feeder and they go through it at a phenomenal rate

Keep up the good work

[forestwildlife]

I feed pure nyger seed too and get regular family of goldfinches visiting mine. I also feed the RSPB table mix which brings in the sparrows, doves, pigeon, tits etc
I also have sunflower hearts at the moment which the goldfinches love as do all the rest.
I have stopped feeding fat balls for the moment because it was attracting too many starlings as the fledglings were about lol

[BugBear99]

Thanks for your quick replies! At the moment my dozens of blue/great tit fledglings are out-eating the starlings on the fatballs, poor starlings aren't getting a look-in for once! Maybe I will invest in a just niger-seed feeder. Garden will be full of feeders soon, it's only small! Thanks again

[Wrenna]

I have a few different combinations which seem to keep a nice flow of different birds coming into the garden.
The niger seed goes down so quickly that at first I thought that it must be running out of the niger seed feeder and falling on to the grass... but a few weeks ago I watched a greedy little goldfinch fill himself up on them.
I've got Bill Oddie's Meal Worm Crumble in one tube at the moment, and it goes down ridiculously fast. The Wood Pigeons seem to have the taste for that one. It's comical to watch big fat pigeons trying to hang off a tube feeder.
I have a seedcake that hasn't been touched, and a berry and seed fatcake that the blackbirds particularly enjoyed. Haven't replaced that, but after reading this forum last week someone mentioned putting out soaked raisins. I did this and my resident blackbirds have been extremely pleased, lol.
I also put out dried mealworms, which again, seem to be popular with the blackbirds, and the starlings.
The sparrows, dunnocks, and the occasional robin seem to enjoy just a regular seed mix, but will occasionally dabble with the other choices on the buffet ! lol.

I don't think there is a particular "best" feed to put out. As soon as they know it's there, and they are comfortable in the environment, you will get all sorts flocking.

[Sprout]

i only ever use sunflower hearts, it attracts all the birds, including goldfinches.
on my feeding station which has four hangers i have two seed feeders each with 4 ports filled with sunflower hearts, one squirrel-proof mesh peanut feeder, and one fatball feeder. i put pink (fruit) suet pellets and sultanas on the small mesh tray attatched to the feeding station and also on a low mesh tray, any apples which have gone soft, and occasionally mealworms. i also have similar hanging feeders dotted around the garden hanging from various trees/bushes, and four birdbaths.
any food scraps (stale seeded bread, cheese, etc.) i throw into the bushes in the borders.
i bought a nijer seed feeder and the goldfinches completely ignored it, preferring the sunflower hearts hanging right next to it, so now i don't bother. i also stopped buying mixed stuff as it made such a mess and a lot just got wasted.
i agree with wrennas last comment

[SheffieldLass]

I don't use a mix of seeds (actually that is a lie, see later), but tend to have a different feeder for each seed type. I found that the birds would have a preferred seed and chuck out the rest to get to the ones they wanted, so causing a big mess underneath. Not good if there are also cats around and where the birds are wisely wary of feeding from the ground. In urban Sheffield I used sunflower hearts, black sunflower seeds and hemp, all in separate feeders. Also peanuts in a peanut holder. I did try niger, and the goldfinches weren't impressed, preferred the sunflower hearts. Other seeds were not very popular. The blackbirds there loved raisins.

Now I live in rural North Yorkshire. I have lots of sparrows here, house and tree sparrows. They love yellow millet (which is comparatively cheap) and hemp, so I mix those together and that suits them. They don't seem to prefer one over the other, so it works well for them, with no big mess of rejected seeds underneath. I also have sunflower hearts in one feeder, and black sunflower in the other. That suits the greenfinches, goldfinches, tits, siskins, nuthatch and robin. It also means that there is less competition between species and prevents over-dominance by a species at the feeders as the birds are in different queues . The dunnocks and blackbirds hoover up underneath all the feeders (as do the red legged partridges and pheasants, if they can find a space between the sparrows). My neighbour has fatballs up, which the sparrows, tits, great spotted woodpecker like, and peanuts which the great spotted woodpecker likes, and other birds use when the queues are big or the other seed run out. I don't put out raisins here, to save cost. The birds are on a ration of £1/day. They get through it by 10am ...

Black sunflower husks do build up, maybe just are more noticeable than millet and hemp. That is why some people only feed sunflower hearts rather than the whole seed.

If you can get straight seeds, try them out, one by one and see what is popular, and what is not. And people say if you have feral pigeons that they don't like sunflower seeds. Mine in Shefield couldn't get enough. They ignored best pigeon food, which I bought for them as it was much cheaper ...

[dave midi]

sunflower hearts is the winner for me here. we get plenty of goldfinches all day, and the funny thing is that the starlings don't really care for them which is a bonus.

[BugBear99]

Thanks everyone, where do people get their straight seeds from then? I found 'streetendfeeds' online, but who does everyone else use?

[Tringa]

Hi, Bugbear.

I suggest, as you have squirrels, you get cages around your feeders.

In my experience the little greys can get through (and into) most feeders eventually if they do not have protection.

Then buy sunflower hearts.

They are expensive but all birds like them. We have had goldfinches eating from the feeder with sunflower hearts rather than the nijer feeder.

Dave