I thought I was cheating putting extra mealworms and broken up fat balls to throw up onto the bank. I do not have a garden in the normal sense but a bank above a brick wall, to the back of which is an evergreen (leylandii?) hedge with inter planting of lilac and forsythia and a berberis. There are two Rowans to one end and a Sycmore to the other, the area around also has trees. I do not take in the bird food - it stands on the bank so is about 12' above ground level! We are not allowed to have ground trays so I try to put up about a day's worth by the water bowl.
We do have a large collection of blackbirds though. One dominant male and his partner and two other males with partners. He is a real lord of the manor - even waits while I throw up the food. But no one is allowed to eat in peace - he has chased off a magpie that is a frequent visitor, the pheasant got short shrift, and the collared doves gang up on him and he still wins! Used to have a large collection of starlings but we were made to take down all bird feeding equipment last year whilst they sorted out a rat problem - it got into the ceiling above our ground floor flat. Still we have had up to 6 at any one time but not today!
But has anyone else noticed that the RSPB fat balls are not as popular as those from Wilkinson's? I have a holder for the extra large fat tube cakes for starlings. It ran out in three days, so I substituted fat balls contained in an orange net and fastened it with a klip. They seemed to relish them and replaced it a couple of times. Then I bought ball holder and it all went dead! So I put back another orange net filled with balls in the large container -zilch again. I hung up the fat ball older with the remains of a small fruity flat tray from anothr holder - that only tempted them to try the fruity bits! Even this cold snow has not really tempted them back onto them.
Someone told me to try the Wilkinson ones as he had had the same problem.
The pair of goldfinches have not been seen since the start of the snow over 10 days ago.There are in fact two robins, but only one turned up to be counted. I counted from 10.00 to 11.00 slightlly later than normal but put out the extra and I am still getting my regulars coming back for second helpings.
I havent tried either fat balls but am considering buying some this upcoming year - currently, dad buys suet pellets and meal-worms in a mix, as well as peanuts for the feeder and I bake a special loaf of bread especially for the birds each week - putting millet, quinoa, sultanas etc into a mix of olive oil with organic wholemeal flour and bicarb of soda and water mix and sometimes some almond meal or nut crumbs - they enjoy that and it hasn't any bad ingredients like shop bread might have... and also buy various bags of seed which i combine so they have variety. We seem to get a lot more birds now i bake them a loaf instead of chucking out sliced factory-produced muck - tho it might also be because noone but me goes into the back yard now dad cant get his zimmer past the fridge.
My Aussie and British birds blog - www.birdstory.com