hi i've been feeding my garden birds for about 3 years and i'm pleased to report a steady rise in sparrow numbers when i do the spring survey. i have 3 feeders and they are clung onto by everything from doves, tits, sparrows, starlings, crows, robins, dunnocks, green finches and squirrels.
i've been trying to help the sparrows out due to their declining numbers, but it seems whichever type of seed mix i buy, they want to pick out specific seeds and ditch half the rest all over the floor. this seems to be worse now i've bought them some johnston and jeff premium which is wheat and husk free and full of small seeds. it just seems like if they have a favourite type of seed in the feeder they will prefer to rummage for them regardless of all the other small seeds. I can't tell what they're picking out of this mix but they used to pick the hemp out of another old mix. this premium mix contains:
Canary Seed, Natural Groats, Milo, Millet, Wild Seeds, Suet Pellets, Sunflower Hearts, Sorghum, Rapeseed, Peanut Nibs, Aniseed
has anyone else found this problem? does anyone feed them single seeds and if so which type? i've no idea what they would eat in the wild?
appreciate any help thanks
We have upwards of 30 sparrows feeding , we noticed they were throwing most of the wild bird seed on the ground , so just fed Sunflower hearts and fat balls through the summer. The other day I found a bag of wild bird seed in the cupboard and filled a large feeder with some. In just over a day it has been emptied with no spillage. I can only assume that now there is less food about they are not so fussy.
taffy