Hi....reading the other comment about nijer seed, when we wanted to attract them we did the same and it took a long time ( a couple of months if i remember rightly , 2 years ago) Now they are regulars as many as 8 at a time and only eat sunflower hearts so out went the nijer . Also i bought the feeders from a company that have round rings instead of perches. The idea being they have alround vision or something like that. Well..., they sit on them like they are the sofas of bird feeders !!!!! for normally around 5 mins easily . They are great as they jostle for position even the nuthatch uses them ...quickly though as he prefers the suet pellets in the nut feeder.
So good luck
Hi Joanne
It is strange how nyger seed works for some people and not others, in some places they seem to take both, the Lodge hide feeders would be a good example! Great to hear you have a nuthatch visiting, cracking little birds!
Warden Intern at Otmoor.
My goldfinch started on nyger and have now moved onto sunflower hearts although I am extremely jealous that you get eight of them and a nuthatch as well! I love nuthatches and see them whenever I go into Sherwood Forest near where I live, but I haven't yet worked out how to entice them into my garden!
The feeder sounds great! I get more redpolls than goldfinch and they are about the tamest bird that comes. They sit for ages at the feeders and when something happens to frighten the other birds away, there they are still sitting, always the last to fly away.
See my Flickr photos here
https://www.flickr.com/photos/115745582@N04/
Mine eat both but prefer nyger.
www.saltwells.blogspot.com
www.flickr.com/photos/saltwells
I've only had a couple of visits from Gold Finches :( and they were more attracted to the fatballs & don't appear to touch the Nyger Feeder. Everything else requires regular topping up so I don't know if I'd bother buying it again. However I have seen large groups of Gold Finches through my binocs on top of 1 of the trees next to my garden. They sit there regularly with greenfinches and chaffinches around about mid-day. Trying hard to entice them all down! lol
Interesting posts
Kind regards Richard.
My goldfinches have sunflower hearts and niger seed - show no preference, depends how many visit as they jostle for space on the feeders with the blue tits and others. Had 9 goldfinch and 10 blue tits yesterday - with 8 chaffinch on the ground collecting the dropped bits. The goldfinch stay for longer at each visit so seem to like to settle away from the blue tits who flit in and out
My Goldfinches wouldn't touch the nyger seed at first preferring the sunflower hearts, then they went for it, and now they're strictly sunflower hearts only so I've ended up throwing away the remainder of the nyger seed. Strange how they differ.
Annie
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
Einstein