Mine is undoubtedly sunflower hearts without the shells as everyone seems to eat them (apparently headgehogs eat them too!).

I get sparrows, tits, doves, pigeons, blackbirds and robins eating them.

At the moment I'm using a mix of sunflower seeds and raisins which seems to be working well for sparrows and tits.

Chapplewood peanuts are the only type I've used so far as they are working wll, I get all sorts!

We have Niger seed for the flock of Goldfinches , greenfinches , one chaffinch & a few others, Peanuts for all kinds of tits & woodpecker. On the tray we have a good seed mixture added are, raisins,dried mealworms, suet to go,& shelled sunflowers where we get robins,collared doves , blackbirds, sparrows, linnet & others.
The most abundant food at the moment is the berries on the rowan which attract the starlings & thrushes.

We have never heard of Chapplewood peanuts????

This post was last modified: 05-08-2007 08:34 PM by tibbar.

The mealworms disappear almost as soon as I put them out, which is proving to be quite expensive. Typical that I should get the birds with the most expensive tastes They positively turns their beaks up at the cheap suet balls.

Our suet balls were untouched also but 'suet to go' is sort of minced pieces with insects in it & that goes very fast like Timberwolfs mealworms. I remember noting something that you should not feed dried mealworms when birds are feeding young as they have very little nutrition in them for youngsters but live ones are fine. Do they not escape though?

This post was last modified: 06-08-2007 09:50 AM by tibbar.

The sparrows love my wilkos suet balls at the moment. I have put out some raisons but no one has touched them yet. I also have the bill oddie suet insect pellets that go quite quick, and yes, the live mealworms go very quickly. I make my own suet starling food by melthing suet andpouring it over bread and scraps etc - at fledgling time that goes quick. Where wheat bird food has fallen on the floor I ave let that germinate and grow also so hopefully the birds will like that. Watching birds is much more fun than big brother any day!

The fat balls and cakes always seem to down well in our garden - perhaps because several gardens about ours put out peanuts, and it provides a change. Sunflower hearts on the bird table don't last too long either.

I found that used cooking oil, mixed with flour and seed will be eted quickly. I used to do this when I was younger in a dogwood bush! - another way ofm preventing it going down into the drains and blocking them!

Thanks for that tip, never heard or tried it before. What kind of birds have you attracted with it?

Sparrows, woodpigeons all eat it at the moment. I have know starlings to have a go too. I think even the hegehogs had a nibble.

When I was younger, this recipe attracted two long tail tits! I was fascinated.

well at the moment everyone seems to love the Sunflower Hearts..
Im filling up the tables and bird feeders every other day ..with visiting Doves
sparrows and the Tits ..
I have two Quails which also love a Corn mixture with wild bird seed
mixed in ..The squirrel is always around taking what she can ...she had
babies this yr so was out looking for everything..from walking or should i
say running off with half a fatball..[/size][/color]

I've only just started to put seed out again for the birds, and at the moment I'm just putting out my Parakeets food that he doesn't eat, but all that has come into the garden so far is Sparrows and a Robin, so I'm looking to buy some other bits for them, but a few years ago, my son was into fishing and told me to get rid of a load of maggots he wasn't going to be able to use and within 3-4 minutes my garden was covered in Starlings and the maggots had all gone

Think it has to be the cherrys from our cherry crab tree, aside from worms!

Hello

I have just moved from country Ireland to city England and am really disappointed by the lack of birds in my new garden. I'm thinking about buying a birdhouse/feeder and some food. I visited the local garden centre last weekend and was completely overwhelmed by the range of brands available.

To me it seems like a choice between buying Tesco cornflakes and Kelloggs cornflakes but as I'm new to this I'm rather clueless. Can any of you advise which brand is the best to get and in particular what brands I should avoid. Can birds really tell the difference?

Thanks a million!