Help! Goldfinches!

[whitling2k]

Hi there,

We are in the fortunate position of having lots of feathered visitors to the garden, most of whom are polite and clean.

Unfortunately, the most frequent visitor, the Goldfinch is a really messy eater, throwing 50% of the food onto the ground. They also are very fussy, only eating de-husked sunflower hearts.

I have built a gravel bed below the feed station, with the idea that I could turn it over occasionally, but they are throwing the seeds away so rapidly that the gravel has become saturated with greasy and mouldy seeds, and it probably needs throwing away now.

My other idea was to add some seed trays onto the feeders, but that gives the pigeons and doves a seat to gobble the lot from.

Any ideas on how I can reduce the mess made or reduce the wastage (without the pigeons or doves from accessing the food?)

Or at least making it easier to manage the waste so it doesn't start smelling in wetter weather

Thanks

Whitling2k

[Deb London]

I have exactly the same problem. I was wondering if they would make less mess with niger because I think I see the sunflower hearts fall out of their (fat greedy little ) mouths and had the idea that they simply find the seeds too big, but this is pure speculation.

PS Welcome to WAB.

[RKB]

They are selecting the most calorific seed items, and discarding the less fatty seeds (or those which might have an insect infestation and been eaten inside the husk?), or those that they can't handle. As there is so much food, they don't need to wrry about retrieving a dropped bit - they just pick up another.

If you put a tray underneath you'll also catch the droppings - a recipe for disease transmission.

You need to change the way you feed, and also what you feed. Don't put mixed seed (wild bird food mix) in a feeder, as you'll just get birds tossing out the grain/grass seeds and picking up the oily seeds. Feed only sunflower seeds or niger in feeders. Wild bird mixed seed should be fed loose on a platform, and not so much that it's left over at the end of the day. If the peigeons get it, well they need to eat too. The alternative is to not feed mixed seed - just sunflower or niger in feeders. You'll still get husks falling to the ground, in which case you can buy the more expensive husked sunflower, or just live with it.

It sounds like you also need to have a re-think about how you're managing hygiene. Birdfeeders are a major source of disease transmission, and we've been in the middle of an epidemic of trichomonas and salmonellosis at garden feeders for a few years now. This is no joke - it's killed a fifth of our greenfinches and many sparrows, all due to dirty garden feeding. If food/debris is accumulating underneath feeders then you need to address this asap.

You need to move feeders around every month or two, and change what/how you feed as per above. You also need to have feeders over gravel, or ground that you can dig over or power-wash on a regular basis to remove droppings and debris. You also need to disinfect your feeders, bird baths and feeding platforms, and the areas underneath/around them on a regular basis (at least weekly). If you see any signs of diseased birds (fluffed up, weak, or trouble swallowing) then you need to stop feeding completely for at least a few weeks.

All of this sounds like a hassle, and it is. But it is an essential part of the responsibility of attracting large numbers of wild birds into a small area. You probably know much of this, but thought I'd mention it again for others reading.

[SheffieldLass]

I had that problem when I lived in Sheffield and there were too many cats for the birds to feed on the ground so anything that fell there was not eaten. However I now live in rural Yorkshire with no cats around and the birds naturally feed from the ground so that there is no problem here. Anything that falls on the ground gets eaten. When friends visit they comment on the bird behaviour here, saying that they'd never realised so many birds were ground feeders (which also surprised me too ... blue tits, great tits flicking leaves over like blackbirds, greenfinches in the longer grass, chiffchaffs and willow warblers in amongst the parsnips, lettuces and french beans etc ...)

I presume you have the sunflower hearts in their own feeder. That stops them throwing out the seeds that aren't their favoured sunflower hearts.
I used paving slabs under the feeders and would sweep up the fallings every evening if they hadn't got wet or contaminated and put them on a very high bird table for the next day. The pigeons and doves would eat off there. It at least dealt with some of the problem. It also meant I could scrub down the slabs every few days, and after rain.

A possible solution though I don't know if it exists off the peg, is to have a cage surrounding the feeder with a mesh plenty big enough for the finches to get through but not enough for the doves/pigeons, and with a floor to catch the bits. I found the ones that are designed to prevent squirrels getting in weren't very successful as the finches did not seem to like going in them. The mesh size seemed a bit too small.

I found that the goldfinches made a big mess with niger too. Remember they are messy eaters for a reason ... eat one, sow one for next year ....

[poppingjay]

Goldfinches are the one bird that I don't seem to attract, even though I regularly see them perched atop the large conifer a few doors down. I do get a lot of sparrows though who love to throw food about, the area underneath is partly paved which is easy to sweep and swill down and partly soil which I just dig over every so often. Saying this my hens have usually polished off any droppages.

I only put one tube of mixed seeds out now because so much is thrown on the floor. My other tubes have sunflower seeds, with shells and without. I've noticed that if I don't keep the feeders topped up the sparrows empty out the whole sf seeds to look for the odd bald one... just a bit annoying!

Is there anywhere else you could put your feeders that has more easily maintainable ground underneath? it might save some work in the long run

[actionfinch]

Wood pigeons , collared doves , magpies, do alot of my tidying up, as well as the odd robin and dunnock when he comes down..
Like you said RKB, i clean my feeders out on a regular bases, the missus looks at me rather strangely .

[Jim Ford]

Originally Posted by poppingjay

Goldfinches are the one bird that I don't seem to attract, even though I regularly see them perched atop the large conifer a few do

Nijer seeds = Goldfinches.

If you offer nijer seeds you won't be able to keep the goldfinches away from them.

Jim

[RKB]

Plant a patch of teasel too, and they'll soon come to it when it seeds. Set your niger feeder amongst it.

[slimrbp]

Originally Posted by Jim Ford

Nijer seeds = Goldfinches.

If you offer nijer seeds you won't be able to keep the goldfinches away from them.

Jim

Tried that but the collared doves worked out they could perch on the seed tray on the feeder and wolfed the lot!

The finches in our garden like the huskless sunflower seed. Any 'bits' get collected by Wood Pigeons and the Collared Doves.

[Jim Ford]

Originally Posted by slimrbp

The finches in our garden like the huskless sunflower seed.

I prefer to buy them with the husks, believing that the husk offers protection against mould and the oils in the seed going rancid. This is especially important if the birds cache them for later.

Jim