Hi - my first post on this forum! We have recently moved to a new house with a lovely garden, and in the first few weeks we had frequent visits from goldfinches and occasional greenfinches. I bought a sack of RSPB nyger seeds because it said finches loved them, and since then I've hardly seen the finches and the other birds are ignoring the nyger seeds. Any advice?
Hi , welcome to the community. I am no expert am afraid but I do have experience feeding birds. Right now it's breeding seasons and lots of birds are mostly looking for natural food to feed their chicks so a wouldn't give up on you Niger seeds just yet as they may return in September time looking for them if they fed from them previously. It's usually goldfinch, siskins, Greenwich, bluetit and coal tit that feed on Niger in my garden but most popular is sunflower hearts or seeds. But as I say they could just be say nesting elsewhere and that's why you ain't seeing your usual visitors.
Good luck and let us know how you get on.
(Pardon the Scottish Accent)
Hi and welcome. If you say you had visits before buying the nyger, what were they eating then? Linda is correct about time of year, and natural food, but also, where I used to live, nothing would take nyger, despite taking the same nyger from a neighbour's feeder (shared garden) about 15 feet apart! Sunflower hearts however, were wolfed down!.... I blame fickle birds myself lol
Thank you both for your replies - they have started to come back, and in fact I think these were the fledglings (sorry for blurry photo!)
Lovely to hear that the birds have started too come back to your garden. The birds in the photos are adults but that's not to say the youngsters are not lurking around nearby waiting to be fed.
This is a fledgling, so you what to look out for.