Fat Balls . . . (Updated with a small cofession & photos)

I'm going to give this a try :D
 
Smokeyj said:
I'm going to give this a try :D
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How did you get on Jackie?

My confession is that after all of this, I ended up cheating :$:. I found some ready made with a mix of suet, insects and seed in half coconut shells. But once they're all gone I'm going to refill the shells with my own mixture - using some of the tips above.

They've been up for about 2 weeks along with some seed feeders and I'm starting to get some regular feathered visitors. There's a robin and a pair of coal tits that appear at around 9 every morning and a Jackdaw who's a regular lunch time visitor.

Photographically, I'm still at the watching stage. Learning the birds' routines, spotting their favourite perches and trying to get them accustomed to feeding in the garden and seeing me at a distance. I also need to rethink where I hang the feeders before I can get some good shots . . . but right now I don't want to mess with their routine.

Oh well . . . it's just as well that I have plenty of patience.

For now, here are my two first ever bird shots, thanks to the feeders.
Nothing worthy of putting up for C&C but they'll make a placeholder for me to improve from.
By the end of December, with some luck and plenty of practice I'm aiming to get something worth showing on the wider forum.
My Summer challenge of catching an insect in flight has finished, so I need something new to aspire to . . . and a good bird photo is going to be it.





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(Really should have bumped the ISO on the coal tit, it came over very overcast just before I took the shot . . . but we live and learn :lol:)
 
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I refill mine every week end now and they love them. :thumbs:

I also make them little shaped ones out of youghurt pots and put them on the table for them to nibble at, did have a kite try and take one though the other day :nono:, bit of a shock. :eek: :lol:
 
I was thinking of hanging some of the commercially made ones in the leylandii as there is nowhere else to put them really. I know the sparrows are always hopping about in there so wondered if it was a good spot. Don't have a bird table or anywhere else I could hang them really. Plus if I hang them where I can see them I should remember to put more out when they've scoffed them all!
 
Digging up an old thread but due to the weather I thought it was relavant.

I've been on crutches this week and not been able to get out to the feeders so my wife has just gone out and cleaned them off & topped them up. I've also just made a cake for them, using one of those foil trays yo get for BBQ's.

Included seed, rasins, sultanas, crushed peanuts, dried meal worms and some "fruit & Fibre" cereal all crushed up. Held together by gently pouring in some melted lard (sorry, didn't have any suet).

When it hardens I'll cut it into sections & get the wife to put some on the feeder tray.

Hopefully I'll be back on my feet next week and organise another treat for them.

Steve
 
Cleared & topped ours up this morning as we had a dusting of snow yesterday - about 10mm.
We have had over 50mm of snow in the last hour, quite a blizzard at the moment. :(
 
Im interested in doing this and the little ones would love it, What I dont want to attract is flying vermin (Pigeons) though, Any advice, would the type of food I put out deter pigeons?
 
asterix said:
Im interested in doing this and the little ones would love it, What I dont want to attract is flying vermin (Pigeons) though, Any advice, would the type of food I put out deter pigeons?
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Squirrels are a menace. No matter what you do they will get to the food.
 
Fat is always a great favourite with a lot of birds. We never see starlings in the garden until we put fat out and even the snow from about half an hour ago didn't stop them.

Sorry for the poor photos. A times it was fairly gloomy in the snow, taken through a window, and I had to increase the ISO a lot on one of them.



 
Has anyone tried Aldi's bird feeding fat balls? Maybe the birds don't like my bird table or the area, but they don't seem to be touching them. They were cheap - like about £5 for 50 or something. I hope they're not made of something cheap and dodgy.
 
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