Hello,
I'm a total newby when it comes to catering to the needs of the local garden-bird population, so please bear with me if my worry sounds silly!
My partner got me a birdhouse and some hanging feeders for my birthday two few weeks ago. We hung it on tree branches in our communal garden outside our ground floor apartment in central London. I was seeing all of these threads about folks struggling to attract birds to the feeders, and well, I seem to be having the opposite problem (if it's even a problem!) Perhaps there aren't any other feeders in the area, or perhaps it's because it's quite secure on the trees, but the feeder is usually covered in the critters. So much so, that this week alone we've had to refill the large feeder tube and the fatballs twice.
I'm loving it and we've been very much enjoying learning about bird-songs and bird types (so many have come!), but for central London this was quite unexpected, and at the rate of refilling we're doing, is going to prove a very expensive hobby!
We're cleaning the birdhouse once a week with hot water and soap (as per the advice I found somewhere) to avoid disease. I'm worried that by so many of them coming together that I'll spark off some sort of plague! We clean the water and refill that every 2-3 days also.
Is this normal? Is it a sign that perhaps we're doing the right thing?
Many thanks in advance!
Becs