I've got hanging feeders but no ground feeders as I have a bit of a magpie and pigeon problem which means there's nothing for the blackbirds in my garden. So I had a look at some of the ground feeding cages/sanctuaries available online and one of the main negatives with the wide mesh versions (6cm x 6.5cm holes) is that young/smaller magpies can still get inside from the bottom holes and maybe a pigeon. I thought that if I used a smaller mesh size such as 50mm x 50mm chicken wire then that would stop the bigger birds while allowing blackbirds to enter; I based this assumption on bird netting guidelines i.e. 50mm keeps out pigeons and 28mm keeps out starlings, so as blackbirds are a bit bigger than starlings but significantly smaller than pigeons then 50mm would work. Also I can make a bigger "sanctuary" for half the price of a pre-made one by using standard chicken wire. It will be filled with only mealworms. Is this a good idea? I don't want the poor things to get stuck in the holes.
I am sure the blackbirds will hoover up anything that falls on the ground. I have several black birds in the garden and no ground feeders and they seem to do ok. When the weather is bad and ground is way too hard for them to extract worms i do throw some sunflower hearts under the confiers for them to forage . I had tried and tested most thing to stop grey squirrels, pigeons and starlings but the only solution for me was pole feeders with guardians. Pigeons just catch fallen seeds...squirrels cant get up the pole and starlings must be getting an easy feed elsewhere.
As you can see this blackbird has worked out how to feed from this suet stick which is hanging from the pole.
I am sure others will be along with some suggestions soon
(Pardon the Scottish Accent)