£££ Price of bird food £££

Same sort of ingredients we use to make fir cone bird feeders (but with seeds, crushed peanuts, etc., and people complain the birds like them too much and they get eaten much, much quicker than shop bought fat balls.

 

As a general rule, I find that the birds which visit my garden much prefer junk food to healthy snacks. Peanuts are gone in a very short time, whereas expensive sunflower hearts etc sit around for ages. The old lady up the road puts out the remains of her sliced white loaf every week - gone in minutes. This is a working class street and its feathered residents aren't interested in any of that airy-fairy muck, thanks very much. Recently, however, we have had a few aristocratic visitors: goldfinches. They will only eat expensive niger seed; every now and then they give the little cockney sparrows which squabble around the peanuts a rather snooty look. I've noticed that the sparrows are beginning to go upmarket. They still don't really like the niger seed, but at the same time they have their pride. They don't see why a few hoity-toity goldfinches should scoff the lot.

 

One of our neighbours scatters what looks like a form of corn outside the front of our house every week, but they never eat it. I just end up sweeping it every blumin week. The only thing I've ever seen eating it is pigeons and even they don't seem too fussed. If someone drops a kebab however the local birds are all over it - what's that about!? :D