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Low amount of birds at the feeders this time of year? (1 Viewer)

YellowBudgie

Well-known member
Hello,

I'm here in Massachusetts and have noticed a very low amount of birds feeding at our feeders since the chirping started this spring. This is our first spring feeding the birds, so I don't know if this is normal or not.

Last year we started feeding in the middle of June and by July we had to fill the tube feeder once a day! It was very nice watching activity all day long if you wanted.

Is this normal having much less activity in April? (In MA). We even have thistle seed for the American Goldfinch. How can they resist!

I have been hearing the house sparrow mating calls for weeks now. The calls are very few now. Could the lack of birds at the feeders have something to do with mating season? Are they preferring natural foods for the time being?

I suppose if they don't nest near the feeding tubes they may not want to venture to far from the nest for food. Maybe they know somehow what they pick off a tree is better for their young?

Anyone know if the lack of birds at the feeder is normal and perhaps why? I'm curious if it's a nature thing.

We do get a few birds here and there but nothing like it was.
 
Probably the largest factor is the fact that as spring approaches there is an abundance of natural food and their reliance on feeders is much less critical. This can vary from place to place.
 
Although in the UK our garden is almost varying in numbers every other day.

For instance the fatballs had been hung up for week and no takers in the past 2 weeks they have been eaten had to be replaced 3 times. The sunflower hearts are regularly topped up but at the moment the feeders to the right side of my garden are daily for some reason. I think at this time of the year their hearts rule thier heads and the need to breed ominates them rather thatn filling themselves up.

I find once the breeding season is in full swing and the eggs have hatched that the parents seen to return to the feeders for a quick snack...almost like a fly thru.
 
Marmot said:
Although in the UK our garden is almost varying in numbers every other day.

For instance the fatballs had been hung up for week and no takers in the past 2 weeks they have been eaten had to be replaced 3 times. The sunflower hearts are regularly topped up but at the moment the feeders to the right side of my garden are daily for some reason. I think at this time of the year their hearts rule thier heads and the need to breed ominates them rather thatn filling themselves up.

I find once the breeding season is in full swing and the eggs have hatched that the parents seen to return to the feeders for a quick snack...almost like a fly thru.

Am I not right in thinking that some birds' diets (and digestion) changes during the breeding season to live creatures, with which of course they feed their young. Our numbers are certainly down, the peanuts have hardly been touched in the past two weeks, however, yesterday a flock of Greenfinches demolished the sun flower seeds.
 
baillieswells said:
Am I not right in thinking that some birds' diets (and digestion) changes during the breeding season to live creatures, with which of course they feed their young. Our numbers are certainly down, the peanuts have hardly been touched in the past two weeks, however, yesterday a flock of Greenfinches demolished the sun flower seeds.
In the last week or so I have noticed an increase in the number of mealworms being eaten. About 50gms per day which equates to about 1000 mealworms. Most being eaten I think by our pair of Blackbirds.
 
YellowBudgie said:
I'm here in Massachusetts and have noticed a very low amount of birds feeding at our feeders since the chirping started this spring. Is this normal having much less activity in April? (In MA). We even have thistle seed for the American Goldfinch. How can they resist!
Anyone know if the lack of birds at the feeder is normal and perhaps why? I'm curious if it's a nature thing.
So glad you posted this! I am in CT and I think we have a New England phenom here. I also have the thistle up and have not had to refill it since I first placed it WEEKS ago. (Except for that one time the squirrel jumped on it and tried to open it from the top! But I had a Christmas Tree Shop squirrel-proof feeder with a baffled top and he couldn't do it.)

If I have up the suet (Christmas Tree Shop was out on my last visit) I see plenty of woodpeckers. But I see less cardinals and jays now than I did a couple of weeks ago. I do not yet have a water feature, so...this might limit what I am attracting. Having a variety of foods and seeds is a good idea.

Also, perhaps there was a kill at the feeder(s). Our neighbors have cats and one day I noticed one of them sitting Cheshire-like under the feeders. This might scare them away!

This is my first year truly birdWATCHING, so...I have no basis for comparison. Let's NE folk keep in touch via this board/thread so we can compare notes.
 
YellowBudgie said:
Hello,

I'm here in Massachusetts and have noticed a very low amount of birds feeding at our feeders since the chirping started this spring. This is our first spring feeding the birds, so I don't know if this is normal or not.

Last year we started feeding in the middle of June and by July we had to fill the tube feeder once a day! It was very nice watching activity all day long if you wanted.

Is this normal having much less activity in April? (In MA). We even have thistle seed for the American Goldfinch. How can they resist!

I have been hearing the house sparrow mating calls for weeks now. The calls are very few now. Could the lack of birds at the feeders have something to do with mating season? Are they preferring natural foods for the time being?

I suppose if they don't nest near the feeding tubes they may not want to venture to far from the nest for food. Maybe they know somehow what they pick off a tree is better for their young?

Anyone know if the lack of birds at the feeder is normal and perhaps why? I'm curious if it's a nature thing.

We do get a few birds here and there but nothing like it was.


Yes, here in south jersey I notice a big drop in activity as the bugs and natural food becomes available. Juncos are gone north. I still have many house finches, song sparrows,a pair of downies, a couple pair of chickadees and a few goldies. I also have a house wren building a nest in one of my boxes. :t:

Lou G
 
Transformer said:
So glad you posted this! I am in CT and I think we have a New England phenom here. I also have the thistle up and have not had to refill it since I first placed it WEEKS ago. (Except for that one time the squirrel jumped on it and tried to open it from the top! But I had a Christmas Tree Shop squirrel-proof feeder with a baffled top and he couldn't do it.)

If I have up the suet (Christmas Tree Shop was out on my last visit) I see plenty of woodpeckers. But I see less cardinals and jays now than I did a couple of weeks ago. I do not yet have a water feature, so...this might limit what I am attracting. Having a variety of foods and seeds is a good idea.

Also, perhaps there was a kill at the feeder(s). Our neighbors have cats and one day I noticed one of them sitting Cheshire-like under the feeders. This might scare them away!

This is my first year truly birdWATCHING, so...I have no basis for comparison. Let's NE folk keep in touch via this board/thread so we can compare notes.

Hello,

On the 29th I was attempting to take bird photos using the digiscoping method. It's where you connect your digital camera to a spotting scope to zoom in close to the bird. I didn't get any good shots but some people gave me some advice in another forum I will try.

This day the tube feeder was filled in the morning with what looked like some normal mixed seed with allot of pre-cracked sunflower mixed in. The yellow finches concentrated on the tube feeder and left the thistle seed sock alone.

This day they ate twice as much as I've seen recently. But only the golden finches tend to come to the feeders lately. I think they may be choosing this other food source for nutrition reasons since I assume it's mating season for them. I don't know much about the thistle plant, if this plant was giving them seed they may prefer the fresh plant's seeds. It seems too early for flowers and plants to be producing good bird seed to eat but who knows.

The only other bird that has started eating from the tube feeder are a few nuthatches. 99% of the time last summer we had the golden finch, house finch, nuthatch and mourning doves feeding from the feeder. The mourning doves sit in the seed shell catcher plate we attached or they feed on the ground. Ground feeders were pigeons, crows, starlings and grackles. The rare birds for us were Blue Jays and Cardinals. I'll try to find what they like the most and try to attract them. I would love to have Cardinals and Jays around. I think we may have had house sparrows at the feeder when one type of mix seed was used.

One reason I wanted to start taking pictures besides having the picture after was to ID what was feeding. There was so much activity and some birds tend to grab one seed and fly off it's hard to tell what they were. Then I wanted to get pictures of birds peached in the tree for a more framable photo.

This is my first spring watching as well so I assume its all normal.

Do you live close to the woods? I'm wondering if that's why we don't see too many wood peckers. We are in a suburban area with houses all around. There are woods pretty close by about 7 or 8 houses from here. It seems like when some bird feeders are close to the woods they get more jays.

I do know one thing to watch out for is the quality of the bird seed your buying. The really cheap bags of feed can be old seed that never sold somewhere else. My dad tried to get away with buying a large bag of seed for cheap at one of those stores where everything ends up that people don't want or overstocked items. I knew it was a bad idea and when it was used in the feeder the birds stopped feeding.

Having everyone else in my area feeding birds, I buy the best quality feed I can find. Pet stores can have very good feed for an extra dollar or two, sometimes the same price. I also add extras like dried meal worms that some birds like. In the summer when I did this all the birds were at our feeder and I could see no birds or few at other peoples feeders. Also mixing pre-shelled sunflower bits really attracts the finches. The downside is cost. We had so much activity it was costing allot for the good feed.

The birds would even let you get close (I could slowly walk and then lean on a car that was about 15 feet from them) because my dad filled the tube feeder every day and they trusted as a little more. Sometimes a finch or two would not even fly off when my father lowered the feeder to fill it, they just jumped to the branch and waited for him to come back.

I think next time I plan to practice photograhy I'll spread a mix of seed near the feeder a few days before and see if any more birds come.

YellowBudgie
 
Lou G said:
Yes, here in south jersey I notice a big drop in activity as the bugs and natural food becomes available. Juncos are gone north. I still have many house finches, song sparrows,a pair of downies, a couple pair of chickadees and a few goldies. I also have a house wren building a nest in one of my boxes. :t:

Lou G

I heard a mocking bird for the first time this weekend in a while. I really enjoy listening to them. When my pet budgie was alive he did as well. He liked to try to copy the various mocking bird songs. The mocking birds never seem to stay around here enough because if my bird heard them enough he would have copied their songs well. Sometime my bird would go into this freestyle singing and you could hear the mocking bird in there sometimes. I have allergies and he could do a human sneeze very well :)

I really like the chickadee song as well. I read there was a study of the chickadee and you can tell when a chickadee is seeing a predator and how dangerous the situation or predator is. I read the more dee's in the song the greater the predator threat. A few dee's must be normal but if you start to hear more dee's than normal the bird is warning the others. They said in the study they were able to get one chickadee to dee 30 times in a row with a imitation owl.

I was going to pay attention but have not heard chickadee since. They were around this area when I was a kid but I don't remember last time hearing a chickadee.

I hope the house wren is successful. Does the male house wren make the nest?

I know the male house sparrow creates the nest and then chirps his head off all day for a female. Thats the one bird call that can drive you crazy. It's ear piercing. Thankfully it has mostly stopped here. We had one male last year and this year make a nest in one of our bird houses. Its funny to watch when a female did come to check out his nest he would get all exited. I don't think he was successful with the bird house nest.

YellowBudgie
 
YellowBudgie said:
Hello,
Do you live close to the woods? I'm wondering if that's why we don't see too many wood peckers. We are in a suburban area with houses all around. There are woods pretty close by about 7 or 8 houses from here. It seems like when some bird feeders are close to the woods they get more jays.

I do know one thing to watch out for is the quality of the bird seed your buying. The really cheap bags of feed can be old seed that never sold somewhere else. My dad tried to get away with buying a large bag of seed for cheap at one of those stores where everything ends up that people don't want or overstocked items. I knew it was a bad idea and when it was used in the feeder the birds stopped feeding.YellowBudgie
I live in the same type of area as you do. The woodpeckers only come around when suet is hanging. The yard is fenced in, which unfortunately attracts squirrels and cats, as they feel safe from predators. The jays like to visit, sit on the fence and check things out a bit.

Do you have a Christmas Tree Shop in your area? I buy the mixed seed there, the birds love it, because it is not the cheaper kind you might find at Lowe's or Home Depot, mostly millet. It is cracked corn and peanuts, etc.
 
Transformer said:
I live in the same type of area as you do. The woodpeckers only come around when suet is hanging. The yard is fenced in, which unfortunately attracts squirrels and cats, as they feel safe from predators. The jays like to visit, sit on the fence and check things out a bit.

Do you have a Christmas Tree Shop in your area? I buy the mixed seed there, the birds love it, because it is not the cheaper kind you might find at Lowe's or Home Depot, mostly millet. It is cracked corn and peanuts, etc.

We had suet hanging when it started to get cold and it attracted 2 types of woodpeckers right away. Some Red Bellied Woodpeckers and another type I cant think the name of right now. They only feed from the suet so many times for about a week and did not return.

It may have been old suet way past it's expiration date since I did purchase it from a retail store. Who knows how long it was sitting around. I think I'll get the suet next time at a specialty bird feeding shop. I'll have a better chance to get fresh quality suet at one of these shops. I'll have to wait until the next winter to try this again.

I think I'll pick some of the cracked corn, peanuts mix, your talking about. I've seen this mix before. Maybe I can put up one feeder with this type of feed your talking about and put another feeder with black oil sunflower seed and pre-shelled sunflower. My dad wanted to put up an extra feeder, may as well try to attack different type birds to each one.

Maybe the cracked corn type seed will get some jays and other birds we don't see much.

We do have a Christmas tree shop available. I'll check them out when I happen to be near one.
 
YellowBudgie said:
I hope the house wren is successful. Does the male house wren make the nest?

I know the male house sparrow creates the nest and then chirps his head off all day for a female. Thats the one bird call that can drive you crazy. It's ear piercing. Thankfully it has mostly stopped here. We had one male last year and this year make a nest in one of our bird houses. Its funny to watch when a female did come to check out his nest he would get all exited. I don't think he was successful with the bird house nest.

YellowBudgie


Not sure if it was the male building the nest since house wrens look so much the same male and female. I beleive the male started the nest and was singing his heart out, then another wren showed up on the scene which I assume was the female. They both have been working on the nest, going in and out of the house. They built in the cheapest box I have which is the little wren "A" frame house from Walmart. :-O

Lou G
 
Lou G said:
Not sure if it was the male building the nest since house wrens look so much the same male and female. I beleive the male started the nest and was singing his heart out, then another wren showed up on the scene which I assume was the female. They both have been working on the nest, going in and out of the house. They built in the cheapest box I have which is the little wren "A" frame house from Walmart. :-O

Lou G

Thats a nice way to build a nest. Will you be able to watch inside somehow without disturbing them?
 
YellowBudgie said:
Thats a nice way to build a nest. Will you be able to watch inside somehow without disturbing them?


No, I do not have a box cameraand because it's a cheap box I cannot open it to view inside from the top. I must remove a screw and the bottom opens to clean out at the end of the season. All my other houses have ways of viewing except this one. :-C

Lou G

ps. Mocking birds are beautiful singers. :-O
 
YellowBudgie said:
I think I'll pick some of the cracked corn, peanuts mix, your talking about. I've seen this mix before. Maybe I can put up one feeder with this type of feed your talking about and put another feeder with black oil sunflower seed and pre-shelled sunflower. Maybe the cracked corn type seed will get some jays and other birds we don't see much.We do have a Christmas tree shop available. I'll check them out when I happen to be near one.
The jays do indeed enjoy that mixed seed blend, if they can get to it, since the finches tend to swarm it! When you're there at the CTS also try to pick up one of those double (side-by-side) squatty sunflower feeders. They're copper finish and short, rather than long. I had purchased a long one but the squirrels had no problem jumping onto it from the ground. They cannot reach this newer short version, and I even saw a rose breasted grosbeak on it!
 
I think if we can't attract the birds via tube feeder in our back yard maybe we can build or buy a small tray feeder and see what happens. I told my dad if we have a tray feeder with birds I would like to hook up a waterproof web cam and he said that would be fine. That would be neat to watch the birds while on the computer. But pigeons may be a issue with this type of feeder. There's always a catch.

Our back yard is small fenced in with no trees (only a few man size tall bushes, (3) 8 feet young apple trees growing) so it may be harder to attract feeding birds if fenced in areas may be causing an issue. Maybe if one fenced in area has problems with cats the birds just stay away from fenced in areas near by. I have never seen a cat around our house.

We have had great success hanging the tube feeder and socks up high in our front yard tree. The birds feel comfortable with such a big tree. If nothing works in the back yard we can try the finch feed in one tube and cardinal, jay feed in the other and hang them enough apart in the big tree.

I can always have the web cam in the front yard aimed at the tube feeder if the backyard is an issue.
 
Paul1853 said:
In the last week or so I have noticed an increase in the number of mealworms being eaten. About 50gms per day which equates to about 1000 mealworms. Most being eaten I think by our pair of Blackbirds.

Hi Paul,

Do you feed alive or dried mealworms? What type of a feeder do you use on the mealworms? I have a window feeder and birds had the same food source at our front yard feeder so none or few came. I was going to try to find some freeze dried bugs / worms / larva from the pet or fish store. To see if I mixed the bugs with the seed it would get these bug eaters to come. I would put more bugs where most accessible to show them off to try to get regular birds feeding.

We have a pair (I'm sure sure many pairs) of house sparrows who seem to be feeding their young or watching the eggs. I see them leave allot and come back somewhat quickly. I was guessing they already have chicks but I'm not familiar with them. It was mating season for them around April 13th, perhaps a bit earlier. I remember because I had a bad headache :)

If any dried bugs will work I could only put those in the feeder. But if I have to use live ones I don't think it would make a nice windows feeder :)

I think I'll do a little research and see what web pages are saying about feeding bugs to the bug eating birds.
 
From my experience, attracting more Jays is as simple as whole peanuts.

Just remember (as with most other foods as well) make sure to keep em fresh and dry.
 
Birding5000 said:
From my experience, attracting more Jays is as simple as whole peanuts.

Just remember (as with most other foods as well) make sure to keep em fresh and dry.

Thanks,

I spoke to the owner of a family owned bird specialty shop where you can get the hard to find items. He told me Jays really like walnuts and cashews. I may setup a table feeder in the back yard and give them some mixed nuts I just purchased from the market. The table feeder will be big enough for jays, cardinals, etc... He told me the nuts would get their attention more so than the mealworms. Hopefully I can find a table feeder with a roof so the food doesn't get too wet when it rains. Also something easy to clean, a removable tray would be nice.

I did put some live mealworms in a cleaned altoids container and placed it on the ground. A Blue Jay was there investigating when I looked out the window. I have no idea if he ate any or not. Maybe he had a few since most where still there after I checked. Do jays like shiny things?

We have since rigged up a temporary open feeder out of a cool whip container cut down and a long piece of wood mounted in the ground. It's just temporary until we can get a table feeder.

It's funny I have tube feeders. The one in the front is mainly for finches, nuthatches, etc. I purchased mixed feed for sparrows, jays, songbirds, etc and filled the back of the house with this feed. It's fresh, even has an expiration date. The sparrows were eating from the finch feeder today.

I have seen them feed from the back as well but the front feeder has been eaten dry and the back a few inches. I've been putting out seed on the ground and the front feeder location the seed gets eaten. The back feeder on the ground I put some black oil to attack anything really and it didn't get eaten like the front. I'll put the pre-shelled sunflower on the ground in the back. The finches are eating that.

If my Dad would let me I would setup like a bunch of feeders all with one type of seed in each and see what happens. Maybe I can do this to a point. Buy a four hanger steel mount like our single hanger and have 4 $3.00 to $5.00 tube feeders each filled with one type of seed and observe what seed goes down quicker. Or get a four tube bird feeder for more money.

See ya
 
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