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Millet sprays

purplerallimpurplerallim LincolnshirePosts: 1,975
in Wildlife gardening
I know this maybe a daft question,  but do wild birds eat millet?
You see millet sold for cage birds but what about wild seed eaters would they eat it? I do like to give a choice of foods to the wild population and wondered if the tits and finches would like something other than Niger seeds and wild bird seed.🤔 All input gratefully received. 

Posts

  • FairygirlFairygirl west central ScotlandPosts: 25,819
    I think quite a lot of seed mixes already contain millet.  :)
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....


  • purplerallimpurplerallim LincolnshirePosts: 1,975
    I thought they might , but the finches rarely touch the seed feeders and only the goldfinch regularly eats the niger  , so was after diversity to encourage others.😁
  • FairygirlFairygirl west central ScotlandPosts: 25,819
    I have lots of wee birds using the seed feeder - sparrows, dunnocks, robins, chaffies, blue, great and coal tits. I'm fairly sure my mix has millet, but I'd need to check.
    Of course - they may well be chucking it out onto the ground  ;)
    At the moment though - all my feeders have sunflower hearts only. Can hardly keep up with filling them. The goldies love them  :)
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....


  • purplerallimpurplerallim LincolnshirePosts: 1,975
    I put sunflower hearts out all the time and the goldies ignore them! I am watching great tits run up and down my hawthorne trees and am awaiting their squeaky wheel call ( my designation for their two tone call) and for the dunnocks to get started. The blackbirds are so busy chasing each other that they have no time to call yet.😁
  • FairygirlFairygirl west central ScotlandPosts: 25,819
    I've just had a look back, and the mix I have doesn't contain millet, but the robin mixes seem to be the ones which have it.
    I used to buy robin mixes in the past, before I was able to buy online in bulk, and I remembered they seemed to have it. I might switch to one of those again.  :)
    There was a bit of debate about the niger seed here a while ago. I'd just had goldies appearing and was wondering if it was worth getting nyger seed. The general consensus was - it wasn't worth it. I have loads of them all the time now, and lots of youngsters, so I'm glad I didn't got to the expense of the feeder and seed!
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....


  • wild edgeswild edges The north west of south east WalesPosts: 3,412
    Millet is sometimes listed as flax in seed mixes. Sorrel seeds are really popular with sparrows in my garden. I just let all the blood veined sorrel run to seed and they pick the stems clear as soon as they ripen. I'm trying to grow radish seed this year too to see if they go for that. I'm trying to get birds to browse the seeds growing in the garden rather than them having to rely on prepared seed all the time.
  • purplerallimpurplerallim LincolnshirePosts: 1,975
    This year the sparrows did a wonderful job of clearing the black/green fly from the garden ( helped by ladybirds and alot of hoverflies) The early finches seem to like the Aquilegia seeds which is interesting,  I just wish the blackbirds and sparrows didn't like the plums quite so much.🙄
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