Feeding SMALL birds

I use good quality fat balls in hanging holders - they get well used by various small birds and tits, then the bigger birds scavenge what drops down. I’ve also got a novelty squirrel feeder - a little house which I fill with peanuts and there’s a hole in the front, just big enough for the tits to get in for a peanut.
In the really bad weather, I’ve half a dozen feeders and it’s such a free for all, I struggle to keep them all topped up.

We don't put platters of any description out - it all gets eaten by pigeons, magpies and starlings. Everything is in feeders of different sorts. We put fat balls out too at this time of year, some concentrated calories for the little birds. Or mix some suet pellets in with the seed. It takes a while for birds to get used to where the food is, so be consistent. A dish of water helps too.

I use squirrel buster feeders - they stop the big birds as well.
Mind you I am having a problem with mice chewing a hole through the rigid plastic bucket that the fat balls come in!

My DD puts feeders out in her front garden. Yesterday she saw this beauty.. Sparrow Hawk, now that's a big bigger than her normal visitors to the feeder.

I recently bough one of these and am very pleased with it.

roamwildproducts.co.uk/collections/bird-feeding/products/roamwild-squirrel-proof-bird-feeders

It a clever design which automatically shuts off the food if a larger bird or animal lands on it.

It's

We have those too choughdancer - mainly because we have so many squirrels, but the starlings can still feed from them. They learnt the trick of hanging on with one foot so there is not too much weight on the stand. They get balanced and the beak goes in and you don't see it again until they've eaten everything they want 😁 They mainly like the suet and will push each off the perch to get their beaks in. I was pretty shocked when I saw the price of them in our local garden centre - twice the price we paid a few years ago.

That's a beauty of a sparrowhawk Visgirl

We put mealworms in a feeder which has a saucer shaped bottom.

All the feeders hang on a feeding station, sometimes a squirrel tries to hang upside down on it and reach the food but mostly it is just small birds.
The pigeons hang around underneath, waiting for any spills.

Visgir1

My DD puts feeders out in her front garden. Yesterday she saw this beauty.. Sparrow Hawk, now that's a big bigger than her normal visitors to the feeder.

Great photo, Visgirl

One swooped past my head in the summer and grabbed a feeding sparrow, took it in the shrubbery .....

I find this one is good - bigger birds can't hold on to it. It's called an acorn feeder from Am***n of course!
I scatter mealworms around under the shrubs early in the day so it's a free for all but small birds seem to find them and nothing stays on the ground overnight.

I have a feeder for smaller birds but the greedy starlings still manage to get at the fat balls but it's a lot more work for them.
I noticed our local robin tends to flit around the flowerbeds and on the patio so have taken to scattering some odd little bits for him. He seems happy enough and it keeps him away from the bigger greedy birds around the feeder but I don't put loads out as even the blackbirds miss out.
But any residue fat from cooking is mopped up with porridge and that goes quickly when it's put out.

I've ordered a protective cage to put over a tray of bird food on the ground. It comes in a choice of mesh size depending on the birds to be allowed access. I also have a squirrel buster hanging feeder which stops pigeons. However, they can still clean up the bits dropped on the ground by tits and finches. This keeps everyone happy!

We rarely see starlings now.
Sometimes a few young ones will arrive, have a peck around for a few days and then go again.

Eats, pecks and leaves !

I have one of these Roamwild feeders hanging up on my feeding station. If any of the bigger birds land on the perches, the ports close and pre ent them accessing the food. Finches and tits can dine in peace!

Also got one similar to this in green.

Cali 🤣🤣

Your starlings are all in my garden! It’s a wonder they haven’t brought the tv aerial down and the noise when they squabble is unbelievable!

We used to have starlings here - one fell down the chimney years ago then we fitted a cowl.

But we only see young ones a couple of times a year now.

Visgirl.....we had a Sparrowhawk in our garden too today! I've never seen one before.
I had to stop putting anything with suet/fat in as we had a regular rat visiting us...

We've had robins feeding on the feeders for a long time now, but does anyone else have blackbirds that feed off the feeders? We noticed earlier this year they seem to be copying the starlings. The chaffinches also used to ground feed but quite happily join the greenfinches and goldfinches now.

The blackbirds scuttle around in the shrub borders and pull worms out of the lawn. They don't seem to go on the feeders.

The first winter I had Hattie the hound we had heavy snow and she had never seen it before, getting very excited.
I had hung strips of suet from the washing “umbrella” for the birds and caught her up on her back legs trying to get the suet. Greyhounds are permanently hungry and very greedy. She got one bit down but I was then unable to find the metal ‘S’ hook I had hung it up with. I had a sleepless night worrying that she had swallowed the hook as well - which would have meant an x-ray and immediate surgery, and could so easily have been fatal.
Next morning I dug right down in the snow and (phew) found it.

We solved this problem years ago. We use a ground feeder as well as hanging feeders. The ground feeder has a cage around it which has a grille on 2 sides which you can adjust. We have ours wide enough to let in blackbirds and starlings but no access for pigeons, magpies and squirrels.

We have the Adjustable ground feeding sanctuary available from the rspb website. It’s been hugely successful. The site wouldn’t let me save the photo unfortunately.

Arewethereyet I too have noticed the changed behaviour of the ground feeding birds. Robins are quite adept now at using the hanging feeders and for the first time this year we have seen blackbirds doing the same. I have to laugh at the young blackbirds frantically running around the caged ground feeder trying to work out how to get in. It’s usually a robin that shows them how it’s done.

Callistemon21

We put mealworms in a feeder which has a saucer shaped bottom.

All the feeders hang on a feeding station, sometimes a squirrel tries to hang upside down on it and reach the food but mostly it is just small birds.
The pigeons hang around underneath, waiting for any spills.

Similar here.
The fatball feeder is in the centre of a lantern effect feeder to stop squirrels, so’s the sunflower seed holder.I also hang half coconuts filled with fat and seeds on tree branches.