Baiting on the off chance ?

[MeadsMan]

Hello all,I was considering taking out some seed and nuts,to near by woods ect,in the hope of attracting the subjects closer for photo opportunities.I am not confident this would work quickly enough to be viable,as I don`t really have the opportunity to bait a particular place on a regular bases,except my garden of course,I suppose also as spring draws nearer natural food would be more abundant,making my offerings less desireable,I assume that as I wouldn`t be feeding a place regularly,the birds wouldn`t become acustomed to it as a regular food source so no harm done ? But are small birds opportunity feeders ? I am just wondering if any members have tried this,and with any success ?

With thanks.

[m1.carson]

Hi meadsman,

Last weekend I put down a small amount of bread to see what happened at work, by evening it had gone, so, I put down more bread and some robin food, the pair of blackbirds had a few pecks at the bread in the morning and totally ingnored the seed, they can't of recognised it as food, so, to hazard a guess, an occasional baiting won't do you a lot of good.

No harm in trying though, good luck.

Max.

[John D]

Hi, I think you will find out that Blackbirds prefer 'soft food'. Hence that's why they pecked at the bread and not the seed. Put a worm in front of a Blackbird and see what happens.
With regards to 'baiting', it takes birds a while to get used to accepting seed unless it's from a regular feeding station.
John D

[glsammy]

My advice would be to use a place where people visit regularly.
Established feeding points aren't always essential but they certainly help.
I was becoming bored with my usual feeding point at Sherwood Forest, so we went further into the woods when I saw a rotting wooden post. I placed a bit of food in it and waited. Within minutes we had a good number of birds there. Today we tried again and it worked just as well. Here's a few shots I got from there, it certainly looks better than the feeding pots!

These were from the first visit:





And these from today:





This one was waiting for its turn:

[MeadsMan]

Big WOW factor at your photos Graham,those are excellent.I don`t actually know of any spots out in the wilds where people feed the birds regularly,but I might just have a go and see what happens.As long it`s not overly cold,I don`t mind just watching whats around anyway.

[glsammy]

Look out for Robins. If there are Robins around, there will be other birds in the wings!
This area I used isn't a feeding area at all, it's quite deep in the woods. We spotted the Robin first, it was the only obvious bird. As soon as he started to feed, the other birds quickly followed.

[galanthus]

Using bread probably isn't great, maybe some brown bread soaked beforehand, but not a lot in there nutritionally and contains salt.

On our local canalside nature reserve, the warden has cut off the bottoms of plastic milk bottles so that they're about 3cm deep, then he's nailed them on top of the odd fence post and filled them with mixed seed. Works a treat, the birds love them. I think the water drains out via some tiny holes in the corners. try that on the odd post