Bird feeders - is a fair amount of "picking through" common

[DMF235-Belfast]

Just a wee update... the 4 ruddy magpies are trying to take it over so will have to remedy that... the woodmouse appears to be back or atleast one doing the exact same thing at the exact same time and (touch wood) the seed thats being left behind largely appears to be grass seed (so far)

[dmbuild66]

Hi I was wondering after all the talk of cheap seed (wheat barley etc) is the problem that small birds don't eat it because of its size or do they not like it? I was thinking about buying a grinder (more for grinding up peanuts) but was wondering if grinding up the filler seeds would help, it would of course stop them germinating and maybe more birds would eat what is usually wasted! A good idea or am I living in Cuckoo land?

[Paul mabbott]

Three things about birds feeding selectivity.
(a) yes small birds eat small seeds, large birds eat larger seeds so that while most parids wil eat the same food, coal tits will eat much smaller seeds (from the same plant, e.g. sunflower) than great tits.
(b) some birds are 'built' to eat different types of seed - their bills and guts are different: some can digest large corn seeds like maize while others can cope with nothing bgger than barley &c &c
(c) many seed-eating birds have evolved different bill shapes to allow them to crack open the husks of different seeds: small finches can open umbellifer seeds such as nyger while crossbills can extract seeds from big cones.

In answer to your question regarding whle corn seeds - I think that most of our garden/woodland birds are not built to eat those seeds although they go down nicely with pigeons!

Grinding up seeds would, I think, encourage those ground-feeding generalists such as dunnocks, sparrows and robins .... I don't know what effect it would have on the seed specialists such as finches and tits ....

Originally Posted by dmbuild66

Hi I was wondering after all the talk of cheap seed (wheat barley etc) is the problem that small birds don't eat it because of its size or do they not like it? I was thinking about buying a grinder (more for grinding up peanuts) but was wondering if grinding up the filler seeds would help, it would of course stop them germinating and maybe more birds would eat what is usually wasted! A good idea or am I living in Cuckoo land?

[paddy]

Also, while on the subject of 'extraneous product' in bird food - those heavy, round, shop-bought fat balls contain sand. I could never understand why they weighed about three times more than my home made ones until a local dealer explained it. Make your own! Suet, dripping, bird seed, sultanas, a bit of flour, porridge oats, half peanuts - melt the dripping and pour it over the mixture. When cool, it cuts up like hard cake!