Vocal Voices

by **Diflower** » 26 Jun 2014, 21:47

JoM wrote:We rarely get any visiting birds here, I suppose we're too close to the woods for them to need to come into a garden.

My parents have a cheeky robin who visits regularly through the day though, he hopped in through the kitchen door the other day while Mom was making dinner

Jo we have so much open ground around there's definitely no need for them to visit gardens, but they choose to if you provide the right food.
For the first few years we didn't even have anything to hang food from, but once we had a proper feeder and filled it with a mixture of hulled sunflower seeds and black sunflower seeds, then they began to come in. Note the 'hulled' - we buy 1kg of hulled and 500g of black to mix - it means far less mess, unhulled they spit all the bits out

And a generic 'mix' of birdseed means all sorts of weird grasses and things growing underneath the feeder.

And now the shrubs we planted have grown, there is ground cover and 'stuff' on the ground for the little birds to peck at.

by **Workingman** » 26 Jun 2014, 22:10

We have the cemetery on one side with many trees and peace and quiet, on the other side the green is surrounded by trees, so the birds do not have to come to us, but they do.

Many of us put out things like melon seeds, sultanas, bits of fruit and bread, and the birds are quite happy to be with us. They are not so keen on the places that chuck out leftovers of an evening for the foxes, they know who they are and avoid them.

by **Diflower** » 26 Jun 2014, 22:14

Ah yes, ours is calculated.
We don't put anything on the ground - foxes, mice, rats, and the damned pigeons would be the only ones to benefit, apart from the fact that we can't because of Minnie.

The feeder is also a 3rd attempt, since the pigeons will get to any they can, but it's one of those simple perspex tubes, with 4 perches

We don't get squirrels, but if we did, they'd probably be unable to pinch much either.