Reducing food waste, what's good and what's not?

We have a bird feeding station in our very urban garden visited by sparrows, starlings, tits and the lot but also magpies and rooks.

The magpies and the rooks are brilliant, they are so intelligent and fun to watch, especially now when the young ones are finding their ways.

We like to give any food scraps to them, things like old cheese, unfinished scrapings from a plate, and even off- shelf life eggs. Yesterday we had some egg left over from brushing over pastry so gave a 30s in a microwave and plopped the mess on the table- much appreciated by the rooks.

But what is the limit of encouraging pests vs. feeding desired animals and reducing human food waste? The rooks are fun, but I'm not entirely convinced they are not pests who might create problems if encouraged.

And another question, what do you put on your bird feeding place aside of the commercial food?

 

Like like you I welcome all birds to my garden, which is in the country. I feed a range of bought food, spending far too much money. The corvids I don’t always welcome because they eat too much, but I find it’s only when it’s really cold that they come and I don’t begrudge them then. Rooks come only when the young have just fledged. There is a rookery whin sight and I love watching them. Jackdaws and Magpies can be a nuisance at times and I have been known to discourage them as they scoff everything given a chance and the small birds don’t get much.

As regards food scraps, pretty much everything except vegetables is on the menu, old bread, chopped up cooked pasta, cooked rice, old cake and biscuits, bacon rind, old cheese.... pretty much whatever there is. When it’s really cold I add raisins, chopped apples and oats.

 

I only use the commercial foods, I don't put out scraps, mostly because i don't have any and being semi rural i don't want to attract the rats.

 

We've got our hedgehog station close to the patio doors so that we can see them, they don't bother that we're looking at them, even with the light on, but we do have a lot of blueberry plants in pots on the patio and the feeding station is in between them.
We didn't think that they were visiting until i put it out.

 

No it's a feeding station to keep the food dry, the 2 bricks are about 5inc away from the opening to stop cats getting in to eat the food. Thinking of putting another one out in the spring just in case they have some babies.