Feeding the birds

Do you feed the garden birds? 

I’ve just started again. We used to feed them at the old place. Now most of the big noisy work is done. I thought it was about time we started. 

How & what do you feed ? Hanging feeders, bird table, ground.? 

I’ve got 2 hanging feeders, 1 seed, 1 peanuts. 4 fat feeders, 3 different types. Also one homemade feeder with wool in for nesting material. They get one handful of mealworms a day as well. They go on top of the big rock in the garden. 

   

I plan on having a bird table at some point. But it’ll probably be a homemade unique piece. It’s still in the planning stages. 

I buy my seed from here https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/MaltbysS...BNAZ4QHQD0
I get the 15kg bags . I’ve brought enough half coconuts fat feeders now that I can refill them with homemade fat feed. A mix of seed, mealworms & chopped currants .

What species do you see the most of? Mine is definitely the chaffinches 

Finally how often do you clean your feeders? 
I brush any stuck stuff off every time I refill. Going to try to be good and clean monthly.

I don't but P does, I only feed them if P is indisposed. 

In the past we have had hanging feeders with  peanuts, fat balls, sunflower hearts  and niger seeds, but all these were decimated by grey squirrels so we had to stop.  Now that nextdoor has removed all their trees we don't seem to be inundated with greys, so it might be an idea to try hanging feeders again.

Nowadays we have two 'tables' barricaded against the bigger birds, pigeons, blackbirds, etc

A very ancient, much repaired from squirrel and woodpecker damage, purpose built, covered bird table on a post clad with plastic fascia stuff (to stop squirrel climbing up), with an upended bucket (ditto). P has put mesh round to allow the little ones in but stop the greedy blackbirds. He's also put some baffles against the the wind and rain. The little ones don't seem to mind the modifications, in fact some are so brazen to enter the house when P is trying to replenish it.

   

A second feeding station is very Heath Robinson. It's  built on top of a water butt, outside our bedroom window,  purely for robins. The tits sometimes enter but prefer the house. It's very handy for birdwatching from bed 

   

He feeds them fat pellets, peanuts and dried mealworms from Home Bargains.

We get great tits, blue tits, robins, longtails, chaffinch, sparrows and dunnocks. Seasonally we get warblers, blackcap, goldcrest and the occasional goldfinch. The pigeons, collared doves, blackbirds, thrushes and pheasants tend to clean up the ground underneath.

I only feed them in the winter. A couple of hanging feeders under the awning outside the patio doors - so that I can watch them easily. Mostly fatballs amd seeds/nuts. Used to put dog fur inside an old tube shaped feeder but Ted's fur is too short to use for that.
Mostly blue, great, longtailed tits, robins, dunnock, chaffinch, blackbird and the great destroyers - magpie, crow and squirrel.

We have lost starlings and greenfinches. They used to be plentiful but no more. White doves (rock pigeons?) visit in the summer but they're probably domestic from a dovecot or columbarium......how's that for a word of the day?

We have real rock doves up here. Mostly pure, but definitely some evidence of hybridisation in the odd one or two. Luckily they haven’t found the feeders yet. They were buggers when I had chickens for eating all their food.
Chaffinchs are the guys doing best here, we have big numbers of them. We have reasonable numbers of great & blue tits, house sparrows and golden finches, black birds, song thrush, robins and wrens. We have a few green finches, starlings and coal tits. We have long tail tits, but I’ve never seed them on a feeder since I left Somerset. We have lots of other things that are seasonal.