2nd try on edit
Happy New Year to everyone.
I am using peanuts, sunflower seeds, niger seeds, mealworms and fatballs in the garden at the moment.
I have experimented this year with peanut butter with smashed bird peanuts added to it, the birds seem to like this.
I have bought, suet, animal and vegetable which I thought to mix a recipe adding some peanut butter and bird seed to the mix, just wandered what other recipes combinations may work and also what feed others are using in the garden. If there is something in particular that will entice the birds especially for the bird watch weekend.
The jackdaws and crows have been stealing off the little birds fat ball hanging cage this year and the magpie is hanging off the suspended seed table, poking his head in to pick up seed, this seed table is with a roof designed only for little birds to hop in.
Any way grateful for any tips. Also if any one has a step by step recipe using the suet.
Just made pastry this morning which I have now placed in greaseproof and placed in the fridge for a few hours :
250 gms wholemeal flour or brown (or just plain flour if you don't have wholemeal/brown)
125 gms block beef dripping
1 eating apple grated
large handful of grated mild cheddar cheese
handful of birds suet pellets and a few crushed sunflower hearts or peanuts
pure apple juice to bind together
(Important thing to remember, is not to make the pastry too sticky for the birds) ...... as dry as you can get it but so it can be moulded into pastry balls or break off bits of pastry to place around twigs in the garden. Also pinch off bits to strew on the ground for the Blackbird, Robins, Dunnock, Chaffinch and other ground feeding birds.
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Regards, Hazel
LOL Alan, we have underfloor heating in the kitchen/conservatory area so I place mine on the floor for a couple of hours to soften it, so the birds not only get nice pastry mix but they also get the chill taken off their nuts/seeds/fat cake and suet LOL God, they are ruined !!!
Edit: forgot to mention, we were working out how to stop Cyril x 3 running up the wooden feeder post to get the food dish (although he can still jump from a tree branch ! ) and hubby came up with a brilliant idea of a piece of water drainage pipe (plastic) which he could feed onto the post as far as the dish area; it was the biggest laugh as the first squirrel hopped on to the oak log and thought he could climb up the post, only to have the shock of his life and slide back down to the bottom ....... he now uses the adjacent post and jumps across LOL so we are having to move that tomorrow ! He will still use the tree branch but at least it cuts down their options and provides us with some good all round entertainment !!!!
Oh, I hadn't seen the forum mention, it was after seeing the squirrel left the lamp-post alone that gave us the idea that he couldn't clamber up shiny, none grip surfaces .....maybe we'll have to have a garden full of lamp-posts LOL
I had some left over baked beans, so put them out rather than put them in the bin - the birds won't touch them.... Not seen the squirrel for several days either. Do squirrels like baked beans?? ;-)
The squirrel probably had some and was blown away by the flavour ;)
"We, as humans, are the same...it's just that we all see the world from different angles"
AndyW