seeds for sparrows

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

    You only get one chance to make a first impression.

  • Hi,

    I am new to the community (just joined today). I was looking for information on house sparrows as I got a window feeder the other day. I use to have a hanging bird house style feeder (which the sparrows loved) however tons of starlings got to the food leaving them with nothing. So I bought a window feeder and added my normal mix (sunflower flower seeds with peanut kernels) and the other day I bought berry suet pellets too. I also have a hook on the window with a wired mesh feeder full of peanuts but so far no sparrows have tried it out.

    I read that sparrows don’t like change (same with autistic people such as myself) so i don’t know if it’s going to take weeks for them to turn up.
    My neighbour is a HUGE bird lover and has loads of feeders full of different seeds etc and we always chat about the birds when we see each other.

    I really would like to help the sparrows out as well as the robins we always see. I just hope they will like the window feeder and won’t get disrupted with seeing us (I have it on the kitchen window since we only go in there for food & drinks).

    Any advice would be welcomed! x