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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steve Dudley" data-source="post: 1447310" data-attributes="member: 5172">I've had 'Treeps' in the garden here for six years now (see my old web page on them <a href="http://home2.btconnect.com/toadsnatcher/garden/treeps.html" target="_blank">here</a>). I live in the rural arable Huntingdonshire fens. Oddly, the farmer who used to live in the farmhouse by my house was a birder and farmed the fen here for the 30+ years up to the year before I moved here. We are pretty certain Tree Sparrow never occured here before but now I have up 17 breeding pairs.28mm hole nest box is good for them, but they are no means nest box friendly if you have other options around you. I have over 20 boxes out and they rarely use them, preferring instead to nest in House Sparrow colonies in leylandii and privet hedges and to a lesser extent in the nearby farm buildings. All of my birds are within House Sparrow colonies.Mid-Feb to mid-April is the classic time to get Treeps and other farmland granivores in gardens. Natural food is at its lowest at this time of year and birds are known to leave their usual winter sites to search for food. So, if your birds are not actively displaying right now (mine are manic at present and have been for a week) dont be surprised that they arent intent on staying.Treeps need ponds, streams, dykes, etc in their breeding area as they feed their chicks on emerging aquatic insects such as damselflies, craneflys, etc. These form the bulk of their chicks diet. Living in the fens I am surrounded by dykes and watchin them collecting insects on my morning walks when they've got young. On the supplementary garden food side, they love red millet and to a slightly lesser extent white millet. I work with Vine House Farm Bird Foods and we have done lots of single seed tests to work out which species prefer which seed. Vine House Farm have about 120+ Treeps on a set of feeders feeding them soley red millet - they love it! They will eat sunflower hearts and peanuts (preferably chips) but millet is best. Buy seed with high millet content or buy sacks of millet (Vine House Farm will sell you single seed sacks) and add to your regualr seed mix (so as not to exclude other species and red millet alone will simply flow out of regular feeders).</blockquote>

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