First visible visitor to my feeder! (1 Viewer)

I put up a Gardman feeder station a week or two ago - water bath, fat balls, peanut feeder, seed feeder with some wild bird mix and a mesh tray with more wild bird mix and peanuts in it and have noticed that the fat balls have had a little action, the feeders pretty much none, but the tray is very popular and I've topped it up a couple of times so far. I know the bath is getting use as each time I refresh the water I've found seedy bits in the bottom of it. I have a dinner plate on the ground below with more water in, more room for the birds and just in case some birds don't like the bath up high.

As the feeders weren't getting much action I decided this afternoon when refreshing the water in the baths to tip a little of the feeder contents into the tray rather than top it up with fresh - save the feeder contents going off. I then went inside and opening my upstairs window got the first view of a feeder visitor - my local robin! Yay! :t:

I had my camera to hand so managed to grab a couple of photos, but as it was shaded there the robin came out a little blurred, very much so in the second shot where he was going for some seed in the tray. Really nice to see one a bird on there, and great that the robin is using it. I'll have to get some mealworms!

Congrats on your visitor, your Robins are very pretty!:t:

As long as you regularly stock the area with food, you will soon start to see many more bird species at your feeding station.

Garden bird photography can be extremely rewarding, some super advice not in the least required are more more more focal length (or larger crop factor camera), and an abundance of patience!

• For the best photographic (rather than feeding the birds) results, be sure to think carefully about your feeding rig and set up. Try to place some strategically positioned branches at locations where you know the birds will come to perch prior to moving on to the food and your feeders. By all means see what I mean by taking a look at my gallery here. The branch you see in some of these shots is placed adjacent to the feeders and the food, and the birds now nearly always come down onto that branch prior to moving on to the food. This provides plenty of opportunity for photographs.

• Try to locate the feeders close to some bushes where cover can be provided - not too close mind you as those awful cats will soon learn to hide out in there too!

• Plenty of light is needed for action shots! I am about to reposition and rebuild my entire feeding station using natural materials, rather than the metal framed feeder I have now. I am not sure I have seen any shots that are good where the plastic or metal grid of a feeder is in shot - one needs to try to avoid having the actual feeders/containers in the composition.

• Place evergreen branches or thicker twigs into the feeders for the birds to land on. This provides a far more natural looking 'perch' than a black or green plastic thing sticking out of the feeders.

• Food is obviously important too. Depending on what birds you have in your location, try to encourage the different species by placing a variety of foods around the place. I appreciate most birds will eat most garden foodstuffs if hungry enough, but if you keep a plentiful supply around your feeders then you will soon see that certain species have a liking for certain foods. Coal Tits love Sunflower seeds, Blue and Great Tits love peanuts and fatball food, Nuthatch also love peanuts. LTT's love both. Goldfinches like thistle seeds, Chaffinches and Greenfinches love peanuts, Sparrowhawks love birds!! You'll soon notice which species are more prevalent and what seed they prefer.

• Keep the area clean, and remove old food that might give rise to infections.

• Clean fresh water is good too!

• Maybe get yourself a hide... like this one...

Hope these pointers help, and good luck!

John

Thanks Downy and John. I may end up taking proper photographs there, but at the moment I just want to attract more birds into my garden so I can watch them. Getting 'a' photo of the first visitor I've seen was more for interest and as a record rather than trying to get a good photo - as you can probably tell from the angle.

Have been keeping an eye on the food and changing it if it's getting old, and I have two sources of water - a small bird bath up on the feeder pole and a shallow dish of water down on the ground. I sited it where there is a high elderberry/cotoneaster bush they can sit in and scope out the feeder, but the bush isn't one that a cat could really sit in so hopefully is ok in that regard. There's also a fence about 10 feet away they can sit on to check it out too.

Some more action today - was watching a blackbird eating the elderberries and some house sparrows in the cotoneaster eating the berries of that, but a couple were also having a nibble on the fat ball I'd hung from one of it's branches, which confirms that they are seeing action (they did look as though they'd been nibbled at). Also had one of my resident collared doves in the garden and it was eating a few of the peanuts and sunflower hearts on the feeder tray - I got a VERY close view through my binoculars, the bird filled the view pretty much! Not sure I want a hungry collared eating all the seed but I do like these chaps a lot and I don't begrudge them a few nuts. I might limit what I put in the tray if they really hammer it, but I do like seeing them in the garden. It spent most of it's time on this visit mooching around under the bushes looking for fallen berries and had a little sit on an old apple tree stump.

I've had good luck attracting 5 species of woodpeckers to my feeders with this mixture: crunchy peanut butter, melted suet, yellow cornmeal, wheat flour and a mix of peanuts, sunflower seeds and walnuts...our birds actually prefer this to the store bought suet(aka fatball?) that I buy for their feeders.

The birds seem to be starting to learn that my garden has food and are taking a real interest now. The berries on the elder and the cotoneaster bushes are really popular and the bushes are a favoured perching and espying place for the birds so I'm glad I didn't dig them out! The fat balls are starting to get blitzed, which is great, and the peanut feeder and feeder tray are used a lot too.

I had a wonderful time just half an hour ago, looking out an upstairs window to see my local robin on the feeder tray and a collared dove on the ground. I went down to get my binoculars and looked out of the kitchen window at them feeding in the garden. Then a blackbird appeared and started scratching around on the ground, another collared dove sat on the shed, a flock of house sparrows flew down and started feeding in a japonica and on the ground. Some starlings were feeding on the fatball feeder and one sat in the tray, munching on sunflower hearts.

Two dunnocks (yay!) appeared amongst the sparrows and the robin seemed to squabble a little with them, which was interesting to see. A couple of blue tits appeared and were feeding on the peanut feeder, on the fat balls I'd hung in the bushes and on the cotoneaster berries. Then I saw a little brown flash and found a wren sitting on the pile of cut branches and grass! First wren I've seen in the garden and I was very excited to see one - I actually misted up my binoculars! :-O Brilliant, beautiful tiny little things and I really love to see them. It hopped around in the japonica for a while, then down on to the ground before it flitted off. Most of the other birds departed shortly after, leaving the blackbird gorging itself on berries and a starling pecking away at a peanut fatball. Nice! :t:

That's great news indeed. I am sure you will continue to attract even more birds in the coming weeks too.

Thanks John. Am very pleased to see all these visitors!

It is exciting when your garden gets busy with birds. I could spend hours just watching them.
The long tails like to use the square fat/cake feed cages, they tend to all land on it at once so you can't see the feeder for the birds.

It really is rather exciting to see all these birds around, especially to see them taking the food you put out - I'm really glad that I bought the feeder station, it's been great!

Another robin appeared on the scene yesterday and my robin spent quite a bit of time trying to chase it off, flying round and round and scuffling on the lawn. Really interesting to watch them scuffling, although I don't approve! Pretty cool to think they're fighting over the right to live in my garden!

I spent some time sat in the garden in the afternoon, fairly close to the feeder but still got robin and starlings coming down to the feeder, which is great to see considering that I don't spend much time in the garden so they're not used to me being out there. I had some more new visitors this morning too, two great tits appeared feeding on berries and the fat balls and also fed and drank at my feeder station. Another dunnock appeared on the ground and I also had a wood pigeon on the feeder tray that was pretty unconcerned by my presence at the window only a few feet away.

Edit: I've added one of the photos I took of the robin on my feeder tray. He knows when I go out to the that something new might appear as within a minute of my going back indoors he's on the feeder checking it out. :t: