Cant tempt the right animals into my garden - Help!

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Mark
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Have had a variety of garden feeders out for years and nver really see anything spectacular.

Of late, Im spending a fortune to feed:
Pigeons
Squirrels
Rooks

The little Robin and Dunnock are allowed to have what they leave and the Blackies scrounge around.

I have a squirrel proof feeder with RSPB Feeder mix , broken up fatballs.

I have a ground cage that stops the bigger birds getting to the food but doesnt stop the squirrells, and I feed RSPB tale mix here.

I also sprinkle handfulls around under bushes and in different spots, but I swear the Pigeons take notes....

We have a large ish hedgerow to the back of us so are reasonably secluded, but I see harldy any sparrows at all, very very occasional Goldie and thats about it.
Also have a wildlife pond so drinking and bathing opportunities are here.

Any help or advice appreciated to get more birds and a wider variety into the garden.....
 
We tend to have a great array of different birds in our garden. I guess that some of it is simply because of location. However, we also put a lot of different bird seeds out - mixed, niger and sunflower seeds which, I guess, attracts a wide range of birds. Oh, and a couple of bird baths - one hanging and one on a pedestal.
I am not sure if this will help but good luck.
 
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Trees. And a pond. Less lawn and more shrubs also helps (the only species a lawn is useful for attracting is green woodpecker). If your garden is too open/flat the birds will never feel comfortable entering it, if it's a garden you're "in" rather than "on" the birds will appreciate it. Having nearby mature woodland also helps, in the absence of which providing a sheltered island of trees/shrubs will attract birds from round about. All of these are more important than the type of food you feed, I have a great diversity of birds visiting the garden regularly using just suet pellets and dried meal worms on the bird table, and black sunflower in hanging feeders.

If you post a wide angle shot of your garden we might be able to make more direct suggestions for improvements.
 
I've found the square fat cakes to be better than the fat balls. The best seed I've found is sunflower hearts - everything eats them. I agree about shrubs, birds like somewhere safe to check out the feeder from.

One food that really brings in some birds is live mealworms. Robins, great and blue tits, blackbirds, starlings and house sparrow love them. The only drawbacks are live mealworms are not cheap and when birds such as magpies spot them, they disappear very quickly.

Dave
 
Remember someone a while back posting about putting feeders inside a globe made of two mesh plant baskets fixed together ... small birds can get in to feed, larger birds/creatures can't. :)
 
Be careful what you wish for, sparrow wise, I am plagued by them. Not much else gets a look in. I often have a few dozen waiting their turn on the feeders and mobbing everything else that shows up.

Strangely enough they don't seem that keen on the RSPB seed.
 
Be careful what you wish for, sparrow wise, I am plagued by them. Not much else gets a look in. I often have a few dozen waiting their turn on the feeders and mobbing everything else that shows up.

Strangely enough they don't seem that keen on the RSPB seed.

I started attracting rats, anywhere there is food left about they will be close by!
 
Location and other factors effect what Birds visit..

This year we had great success encouraging Gold Finches, Great and Blue Tits into the garden, that was until the Easter Break, School broke up meaning my neigbours kids were out screaming and shouting, these all disappeared now, not seen one in the last week.

But it was Lovely to see the return of Eric our Hedgehog.... Who visits every night to pick up the meal worms etc that fall on the ground.

Finches tend to go for Nyjer seeds...
 
I've found the square fat cakes to be better than the fat balls. The best seed I've found is sunflower hearts - everything eats them. I agree about shrubs, birds like somewhere safe to check out the feeder from.

One food that really brings in some birds is live mealworms. Robins, great and blue tits, blackbirds, starlings and house sparrow love them. The only drawbacks are live mealworms are not cheap and when birds such as magpies spot them, they disappear very quickly.

Dave

I put a square fat out yesterday at 9.45, by 15.00 the Rooks had finished it.... :(
Same with mealies - maggies get them before the cute pretty birds have even seen them.
 
Trees. And a pond. Less lawn and more shrubs also helps (the only species a lawn is useful for attracting is green woodpecker). If your garden is too open/flat the birds will never feel comfortable entering it, if it's a garden you're "in" rather than "on" the birds will appreciate it. Having nearby mature woodland also helps, in the absence of which providing a sheltered island of trees/shrubs will attract birds from round about. All of these are more important than the type of food you feed, I have a great diversity of birds visiting the garden regularly using just suet pellets and dried meal worms on the bird table, and black sunflower in hanging feeders.

If you post a wide angle shot of your garden we might be able to make more direct suggestions for improvements.

Couple of pics of our estate.... ;)
Please excuse the washing line - its about to be put away.The garden is planted quite heavily for Bees and Butterflies as well.

Pond to the left


Rest of the Estate
 
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Ok, there seem to be trees beyond the garden so you're not in a rural desert (not kidding, it can be harder to attract birds in a rural area than suburbia).

Immediate suggestion:
  • Move the feeder closer to the buddleia in the corner. It's too open in the middle of the lawn.
  • Get a bird table to replace the ground-feeding position.
More involved suggestions:
  • At least double the width of the beds around the edge and give yourself space for some taller shrubs.
  • Put some taller plants at the back of the pond.
  • The straggly thing failing to conceal the shed needs a prune to thicken it up.

I just grabbed a shot through the patio doors, ours is a bigger garden (not that much bigger, reducing the lawn to a leading line makes it look a lot bigger than it is) but see how the cover comes all the way to the bird table. There are three hanging feeders beyond it suspended from the birch (some times they're on the other birch).



Edit: not only is the lawn reduced to a leading line, it also narrows as it goes to exaggerate the perspective.Who said composition is limited to two dimensions ;)
 
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Also try scattering the feeders around rather than having them all concentrated in the same place. If you can attract the 'nuisances' to one place you may give other species chance to sneak in elsewhere. I have two feeder stands, both right next to shrub cover. One has a mixed seed tube and nut feeder, the other has another mixed seed tube and a 'robin feeder' with sunflower hearts and the roof low enough so that blue tits, great tits, gereenfinches, goldfinches and the nuthatch (and the occasional robin) comes into it but the sparrows won't and starlings can't. Then I have a suet feeder hanging in another shrub. I don't, fortunately, get squirrels but we do have a local hedgehog. Don't scatter food on the ground unless you're certain enough ground feedings birds get to it to clear it up completely, otherwise you're likely to get rats. But a lot of it is the luck of the draw - if the birds are not in your area there's little you, individually, can do to attract them. I'm in a rural area and get a wide variety. A friend only a few miles away in another village gets very little but sparrows and rats. The habitats of the two villages are different - large open fields and roads where my friend lives, smaller fields, woodland and lanes where I live (and a military airfield which is a bit of a wildlife haven).
 
@Alastair
Thanks for your input.
The feeder is in the centre because its the only place the Squirrells cant actually jump onto it from anywhere.
The Honeysuckle by the shed is just growing out of a major prune to to do exactly as you say..
A bird table is just an elevated squirrel feeder round here.....plus the Dunnocks dont like to feed from them.

I do get where you are coming from though, so thanks ....

I think I will try some more feeders, its just keeping the tree rats off them.
 
Try removing the peanuts. Since I did that several years ago I get far fewer visits from the squirrels. And there's no bird that prefers peanuts to sunflower seeds, except perhaps jays - but they prefer dried mealworms and suet anyway.

Let everyone else on the street feed peanuts and attract the squirrels away from you.. :D

After trying a wide range of foods, I'm getting the best diversity of visitors from just three (and none of that expensive RSPB branded stuff either)..
The dunnocks and wrens find more than enough to attract them dropped from the bird table and feeders by the other birds.
 
Get some Nijer feeders and fill with nijer ( thistle ) seeds, you get Finches of various kinds depending on where you live.

Cheap bulk bird mix from wildbirdseed direct and multi level feeders, you should get loads of Tits ( feathered kind ) in various shapes and sizes.

Coconut shells filled with seeded fat ( b&q )

Please folks don't go spending a fortune at places like Pets at home, their stuff is mega overpriced. I've been feeding bird in my garden for years for next to nothing. I've had loads of different species including a Great woopecker and a Green woodpecker.

One little word of caution to new starters. Peanuts must be specifically purchased for birds, some peanuts carry a fungus that we can eat but it's like cyanide to birds.

As for the squirrels no mater what you do if you have to suspend food from anything at all they will figure out how to get to it.
 
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Sunflower hearts, Niger seed, fat balls and peanuts. If you persevere there will be loads of variety coming. I get all sorts of Tits, Sparrows, Millions of Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Redpoll. There are some Blackcap, a pair of Goldcrest and of course the other usual garden birds. There's a Sparrowhawk that occasionally visits and treats my feeding stations like a macdonnalds drive through. Before I put the feed mentioned above up, there was hardly anything. We don't get hedgehogs unfortunately but that's apparently because of the badgers, which are chief predators of hedgehogs

 
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Our garden is about the same size and we have a pond. However when I was ill my wife got an idiot to move it to heavy shade and now there is not much food - don't trust Spanish gardening qualifications.
 
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