Mulberry Tree in Autumn

Hello and welcome to the forum Nick, from a dismal West Midlands.

Looking at the photo, your feeders need to be located where the birds will feel safe from predation. Noting  the bushes around the front border fence and  to the right, should, not necessarily will, provide refuge for the smaller birds, like robins,sparrows and blackbirds to name just a few.

There are caveats, once you encourage small birds to visit and feed, they are part of the food chain, and nature is very good at sharing those opportunities to the predators of your visiting birds. So be prepared for an influx of pigeons, cats and yes, rodents. I said  the visiting birds will be part of natures food chain, that will mean the likelihood of larger predators in the form of crows, magpies, sparrowhawks and many others, vying for their food, particularly during the breeding season, when nests get predated, which can be upsetting, particularly to children.

You should keep the feeders and feeding area clean to reduce the risk of disease among the visiting birds.

Something else you might like to consider, we all enjoy a drink to help wash our meals down and aid digestion, so somewhere where the birds can drink and bathe. There are many good bird baths around, and like the feeders and feeding area, should be kept sensibly clean.

I did mention keeping the feeding area clean, like us, keeping it polite, birds need to go to the toilet, so there will be an increase in bird droppings etc, and not just in your garden, your neighbours gardens as well.

So long as you're happy with maintaining the feeding area, there's no reason why your shouldn't enjoy watching your visitors, and sharing those observations with your children.

Finally, you mention dogs, but not what type, they will almost certainly see the visiting birds as food, and things to chace, so it would be wise to make the drive and access to the road more secure, so if  they slip out through an open door (or window), along with proper obedience training, will help to reduce that risk.

Note I say reduce, not eliminate the risks.

Apart from that, enjoy the autumn colours on the mulberry tree, and please share your observations here.

There are a few regulars to the forum who share what they see in their gardens via photos and videos, have a look, join in and don't be afraid to ask questions, nature is active all year through in all weathers and all times of the day.