I usually put mealworms out for birds during the time they breed and then use fat balls in winter to help build up there fat reserves so naturally Exspeacially now the birds are useing my bird table more than they used to they have been wondering where on earth the food is cause I havnt been buying bird food cause I been working on makeing my pond into more of a wildlife pond and other things more often than usual aswell I havnt had time to get any interestingly I noticed 2 great Tits look around and look in my bird table then in my bowl and then in my border and then visited for a couple of days mainly looking in the soil of my wildflower borders and pecking and perching in the shrub and spearing to try and pull seed things off like they do on the silver birch and the Hornbeam tree and then checked out my pond and stared at it and then checked out the other side of the garden and seem to of resorted to looking for natural food in the garden in the borders and in shrubbery and in the grass cause there’s no bird food so iv been wondering what if people plant seeds of or plants that have seeds birds like during spring and summer not just autumn and winter months when there not able to go and buy bird food or if they want to encourage them to look for there own food and things like that or maybe something some people could try and see if it works. As long as there’s food even if it’s not from the shops it could still attract birds cause they like the seeds or a plant that is known to be highly attractive to insects that like the plants that might in turn attract Also attract birds and not just seed eating ones it’s like another type of bird feeding and some people don’t have to keep buying bird food this way either. Perhaps for starters once you stop feeding add plants that develop seeds birds like and plants that are known to be highly attractive to insects to attract insect eating birds aswell so that once they realise it’s gone realise they can still find food but naturaly rather than having to keep going shopping just an idea I came up with from my experience of not being able to feed them when I usually do