Bird feeders

Hello,

I have a smallish garden. Introduced 2 fat ball feeders - one is caged (not visited often by the birds) and one that isn’t caged which is used extensively by the beautiful garden song birds but also unfortunately: squirrels - they are aggressive and I imagine might scare small birds.

My concerns and questions are:

1. I’m keen to stop the squirrel problem and worried about any risk of rodents. Either getting out of hand would force me to stop feeding the song birds. Should I stop using the non caged fat ball feeder and only use the caged one? I do love seeing the birds from this feeder!

2. I’m worried about the safety of the caged feeder in terms of small birds getting away safely from predators eg cats. Is my concern valid?

  • Hi Depal, welcome to the forum ... My knowledge is that it does take quite a while for birds to accept new feeders! It might be worthwhile to only use the caged feeder from now as the birds have plenty of natural food at this time any may well have become used to the new feeder by the time they need extra fat in cold conditions! Careful siting of the caged feeder will be crucial to keeping birds safe from cat predation, look around and choose a place where cats cannot reach the birds! I trust this has helped!

     

     2013 photos & vids here

    eff37 on Flickr

  • To add to Wendy's suggestion make sure that the feeder is placed as high as possible and a squirrel baffle may be of use

    Cin J