Update: About three weeks ago I added a bird feeder containing sunflower hearts and I'm pretty sure we had chaffinches in the garden this morning.
It was definitely something other than our usual robins, and not a magpie/pigeon/squirrel/fox, so I'll take that as a victory. I just need to remember to wear my glasses in the morning so I can get a positive ID
In my garden the Goldfinches go crazy for niger seeds, the tits and sparrows love peanuts, the blackbird is mealworms addicted and the chaffinches can't get enough sunflower seeds. As a general rule, the more type of seeds you put out there the more bird species you will attract. Also hanging feeders at various heights can encourage a wider variety of birds to come to your yard or garden. Varied heights can also keep one dominant group of birds from monopolizing the feeder.
These days I've cut back and just put out sunflower hearts and peanuts. The sunflower hearts are loved by all such as robins, sparrows, blue and great tits, chaffinches and lots of goldfinches and the dropped seeds are always picked up by wood pigeons. A bird bath is also a good addition in my opinion.
Not sure if said, but I'm always surprised how many visits a small bucket of water gets from birds and other wildlife. So a small pond or a reservoir from run off is a good idea.
Not exactly a small bird but I have a Song Thrush (nesting next to my garden) that has a liking for the remnants of any Pink Lady apples I've been munching, does that make it a T-Bird I wonder.....anyway, I'm getting it to come pretty close to feed at the moment and hoping it will eventually take it from my hand.
Plenty of good advice for you to get small birds in to your garden, but maybe a few Pink Lady apple cores as well?
We used to have loads of tits visiting the garden, until a neighbour a few doors down had their tree chopped down. Apart from a very occasional chaffinch we just get a load of wood pigeons and magpies hanging about now and I've put a cage over the feeder to stop the pigeons loitering on the fence and making a mess all over the patio.
It shows what a difference the tree made as the birds would congregate in there then swoop down onto the feeder. Now they've all gone elsewhere.
We've planted a load of shrubs in our garden but they all have a lot of growing to do - hopefully once they're more established the birds will want to come back in again.
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i find that simply digging something up or over, by the time I’ve walked away some bird or other has started gobbling up what I’ve disturbed.
my robin just found a partner, so we have a couple too
It was definitely something other than our usual robins, and not a magpie/pigeon/squirrel/fox, so I'll take that as a victory. I just need to remember to wear my glasses in the morning so I can get a positive ID
Thanks for your input!
Plenty of good advice for you to get small birds in to your garden, but maybe a few Pink Lady apple cores as well?
It shows what a difference the tree made as the birds would congregate in there then swoop down onto the feeder. Now they've all gone elsewhere.
We've planted a load of shrubs in our garden but they all have a lot of growing to do - hopefully once they're more established the birds will want to come back in again.