I brought the fat balls indoors overnight, just put them out, I shall see if the birds like them a bit softer.
The birds here aren't taking food like they used to, but funny thing is the red wings & feild fares are eating the crab apples and see the blue tits & great tits all looking around the plant/shurb even bird box's for for things to eat, i haven't change the food i put out
The birds are at the fat balls today. And the seed. Everything else must be frozen too hard for them.
There's always one selfish one around. Put some water out and a gang of sparrows collected around it for a drink. One clever sod had to jump in and have a bath. Not nice drinking someone else's bath water.
It might still be there tomorrow morning. We put a saucer of milk out at 10 am, for Kevin, the neighbourhood cat, and by 11:30 it was frozen solid.
I've smashed up a few fat balls before putting them out for the birds this week. There were only a few seed grains in them, so I'm wondering if that's why they're ignoring them.
The ones I break and put on the bird table go in minutes. The same ones, in the wire cage, are more or less ignored.
I make bird cake with melted lard, i put oats and mixed table seed and a bit of flour to bind it. It won't be as hard like the bought fat balls so need to hang it up in a container. Don't see a lot of starlings now or greenfinches. Here they don't go for the peanuts so i don't put them out, they like the sunflower hearts in the feeders, mixed table seed and oats on the table, i put seeds on the floor for ground feeding birds.
I wonder if the effort of hanging onto the wire cage is not worth the effort just to try and hammer a bit of seed or fat off. If other food is available its probably not worth it.
A few months back they would empty the cage in a couple of hours and there was even more available to them then, with apples and berries and bugs a plenty, plus everything else I put out.
I sometimes put out mealworms, supposedly good for Robins, they never touch them, but a swarm of starlings clear them in seconds. Too expensive for Starlings.
Our Robins are happy with eating from the bird feeders. They go for the seeds and the peanuts, but are happiest when we're working the soil. It's lovely having them within only inches of us and grabbing insects but they do slow us down as we have to be careful not to hit them with the tools.
