Wanted - Your gardens

Especially love the bird feeder! Looks great!

LOL Thanks Ross and Traci. I'll pass that on to Mr. Sparrow!

I have copied and pasted this from a post in the Tea Rooms (hence the additional blurb). The mixed feedeer contains bird seed, suet pellets, mealworms, 'robin mix' and sunflower seeds and hearts. I also put uncooked pastry with grated Red Leicester cheese in the middle trees. All the birds love the pastry, the choice of cheese was determined by the robin, who seemed to prefer it to various other cheeses.

There is a nesting box for blue tits behind the middle trees and I have created a penthouse suite for the robin at the end of the garden. There are photos of this in a thread called House For Robins in 'Nestboxes'

There was a major downpour with thunder and lightning about an hour ago. As soon as the rain had subsided, the sparrows descended on the garden. As I was upstairs, I took the opportunity of photographing their various locations in the garden. The photos will also make it easier to understand the layout as described in my profile. There is one more tall tree at the far end of the neighbouring garden (to the left) which the sparrows tend to land on first, before making their way into the garden via the middle tree. They then work their way down from the top until they reach the feeders. From there they move around the garden from food to water and off to the fence to sunbathe/dry off. Unlike the pigeons, starlings and so on, they never fly directly to the feeders. They always use the more circuitous route, even though it takes much longer to reach the feeders. Strange behaviour, but it's what they always do. I counted 52 sparrows before I started taking these photos and a few of them moved around or departed whilst I was taking them.

The original feeding station, which has a fatball feeder, a tray for seed, robin mix etc a peanut feeder (metal) and a seed block feeder.

Top of the tree near the feeding station. The sparrows sit here when waiting for a space to appear at the feeder or last thing in the afternoon to catch the last rays of the sun. They also fly to this tree when disturbed. No food here, this is a purely social area, mainly the domain of the sparrows, but also a landing zone for the blue tits and great tits.

The middle trees with four seed feeders (two mixed, one niger seed and one sunflower hearts) and the bathing facilities on the ground. The sparrows land on the top of these trees and then hop down until they reach the feeder of their choice. It's almost like one of those old arcade games where you drop the penny in the slot at the top and watch it bounce down from peg to peg, left to right until it reaches the bottom. The tree to the left was known as the 'Nursery Tree' when the youngsters were very young. They would spend all day in there and roost there overnight. Some of the adults would roost in the tree nearest to the original feeding station. They stopped this once the littluns had reached two months or so. With a group of more than 60 sparrows, 30+ starlings, wood pigeons, feral pigeons, dunnocks, tits and a young robin with a personal hygiene obsession, it is necessary for me to hose the ground each day!

The sparrows landing zone. There are one or two on view and many more behind the leaves and out of sight.

The sunflower hearts feeder. A very popular feeding zone. Always plenty of customers here.

Finally, the waiting, sunbathing, drying off fence (depending on the time of day).

Hi.  It was actually me who requested to see some photo ideas.  This is my very first post here and I love my garden birds but am still new to this.  I am still trying to get ideas for my garden to keep my birds happy and to decrease the population of the more unwanted guests, ie pigeons and mice, as well as experiment with foods.  My garden birds keep a big smile on my face.  PS I also have two cats who are indoor cats, so no harm done.

Hi Jaan, and welcome to the forum. This Community is a good place to be for anyone who loves their birds and wildlife, so jump in and join in the discussions, ask any questions you like, and don't be afraid to post photos or make suggestions of your own. Everyone is very friendly, and many of us are also new at this hobby. Why don't you introduce yourself in the Hello forum which you will find under the Chat navigation tag at the top of the page!

Hello Jaan, thanks for posting on the thread, have you found the fantastic contributions from everyone useful? Thanks to everyone who has shared their gardens with the world, great to see some of the features and the wildlife that is benefitting as a result!

For more inspiration have a look at the garden case studies from our Homes for Wildlife project.

Thank you, Ian, yes this thread was very helpful.  I will be studying it and implementing some of the ideas.