A 3 Course meal with an expensive wine/champagne at a fancy restaurant usually works for me.
On a serious note though this is an interesting question, now I dont exactly live in bird central. All I seem to see around here are Sparrows,starlings,blackbirds and blue tits. Never seen a finch,hatch,pecker etc etc of any description in this area (too coastal or just too far north maybe) but I'm no twitcher so probably just not looking in the right place however anything that would maybe attract more species to my garden is welcome. Also any tips on placement of feeders, dos and donts ?
Nice to see someone else shares my sense of humour. I came here to give the same initial response but you beat me to it.
To answer the question, Sunflower hearts, sunflower seeds, nijer seeds, peanuts, meal worms, fat balls, lard, general bird mix, breadcrumbs etc.
Also, given that I'm not too far from Carnoustie I can assure Gazamonk that there's plenty about in this neck of the woods. However, they won't come to your garden for nothing. You need food, a bird table, a perch or hedges close by. Also, if you have cats in the area you're obviously less likely to attract feeders as they don't want to become the food themselves! Here is a list of regular garden visitors off the top of my head:
Blue, great, coal & long-tailed tits, siskin, goldfinch, dunnock, tree & house sparrow, yellowhammer, greenfinch, robin, chaffinch, wagtails, wren, blackbird, starling, thrushes, doves, pigeons, rooks & ravens. Less frequent visitors include great & green woodpecker, hawfinch, bullfinch, willow warbler, bramling, fieldfare, sparrowhawk, buzzard, pheasant and more. And that's just off the top of my head!!
Oh, and we have a couple of very regular red squirrels here who also like the nuts in the bird feeders!