Garden birds - getting them in the right place to tog

Hertsman

Hertsman

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I have a squirrel proof garden bird feeder, and enjoy seeing the variety of birds in the garden. I also use a ground feeder - mainly to stop the pigeons eating everything in one sitting.

However, the pics of the birds on the feeder are not very flattering and I was after some advice on what to to provide better "posing" areas for them.

Not a fan of the fence top look either, and thats a common perch before landiing in the garden.
 
A couple of suggestions.

Drill a few holes in the side of a branch away from the camera position and fill the holes with peanuts and/or suet, or nail a shallow container on the side of a branch so it is not visible and fill it with food - sunflower hearts are liked by most birds,

Unfortunately the squirrels will find all of these too and there is not much you can do about that other than perhaps(and this is far from a certain solution) providing food for the squirrels somewhere else in the garden, though a terrier is also quite handy :)

Dave
 
I cannot find the old threads but there was a member here who created a nice custom feeder setup where the approaching birds looked nicely naturalistic.

Think it was about 18 months ago???
 
We dot perches around that we find out on the ground in the woods, we put them a few feet away from the feeders and stick them in the ground. It can take a while for the birds to land on them but they seem quite happy to perch to check the feeders are safe.
Almost all of my garden birds on my Flickr are shot like this. We change the perches every couple of weeks so the shots aren't all samey.

Spreading a bit of peanut butter on the back away from the camera view can help too [emoji51]
 
we have a feeder made out of 3 thick three branches - a bit like a goalpost and the feeders hand down from the top post which can be removed. At one top corner is a platform for squirrel where he eats his nuts (as in my avatar pic)....he doesn't touch the bird food if we keep him stocked up otherwise its chaos LOL We then remove all the feeders and just leave one hanging with different branches nearby e.g blossom, teasels and the birs then land on these as a stop gap to get to the feeders :)
 
Thanks guys, some interesting ideas are brewing in my head now.
 
If you providefoodand water they willcome.Then you can'adjust' by setting up perches etc. Try googling Alan Murphy, a brit in texas who shares his set up secrets - US but you can adjust for UK. I tried to create a reflection pool with a large seed tray. Did not get the reflection but lots of other birds inlcudinga blackcap.

Good luck
 
Birds will always land on a perch higher than the food/feeder. They like to scan the area for danger,before heading to the food. I have a set up where the feeder is an old log with the centre drilled out,additional to that is a upright 2x1 that has a fat ball holder and below a nut feeder.

The perch is about 4 feet to the right,where I can change perches,which I collect and I just sit and wait.

Have to add the reason for this set up is,I live in the city and the only birds I can attract are starlings. This is out the country about 1/2 mile from me,where I get a decent variety . The reason for the fat ball and nuts ,I can load the feeder up and if I cant make it for a day or two to "top up" I know there is still food there.
 
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