I've got bags of seed!

My rather large RSPB order arrived yesterday, so I thought I'd post a picture of what £130 worth of bird feed looks like:

There's also £20 worth of ground feeder sanctuary there as well, in the grey package at the back - more of which later. All of this food can't stay in the paper sacks it arrived in, I've learnt to my cost how vulnerable they are to naughty little meeces with expensive tastes, and after problems with plastic storage boxes cracking in the cold weather (as they have to be stored outside) I now use flip-top metal rubbish bins with plastic inner buckets, which seem to work fine:

 

Nearly empty...

 

...and magically refilled







The Two Towers... of bird feed



They've stood up to snow, wind and rain so far and were going cheap in a sale at Homebase, and one 12.75kg sackful fits perfectly in each bin. They're not, however, very easy to drag to the feeders, so I transfer smaller amounts to plastic tubs stored inside my bike shed.This does of course make it difficult to get to the bikes behind them, which is our excuse not to ride them more often! My aim is to set up another small shed nearer the bird feeders that I can use for both storing the feed and using as a hide to watch the feeders up close - my own little Center Parcs set-up! It's then easier to carry the tubs to the feeders for refilling, although the more types of food I provide, the more trips I have to make.



Also arriving with my food parcels was the long-considered ground feeder sanctuary, which I set up last night. I chose the wise mesh that should keep out pigeons and doves, but allows medium sized birds like blackbirds and thrushes to get in. Unfortunately the mesh was also big enough for my first customer this morning, a small squirrel! Hopefully if he keeps eating the food he won't be small enough for long.

The new sanctuary - squirrel free at this point.

Happy feeding!

The cost of caring!

Running low on most types of bird feed I've been putting out, I put in a new order with the RSPB yesterday, putting all the things in my virtual basket that I'd need: four different types of seed (table, feeder, ground and nyjer); suet sprinkles; fruity nibbles; suet cakes. I also ordered the wide-meshed ground feeding sanctuary I've been thinking about for a while.

So, feed the birds, tuppence a bag? No chance - and no change out of £150, either. Even discounting the sanctuary, that's around £130 worth of bird feed. That said, I also support the RSPB through their weekly lottery, and a couple of weeks ago I won £100, so I think it's only right that the money goes back to helping the birds. It's all karma, probably. And hopefully with the pigeon proofing I won't have to spend that much quite as often as I used to!

What am I getting for my money? Well, three of the bags of seed are 12.75kg each, which is over four times the size of the standard 3kg bags you see in the shops (Sainsbury's sell them, for example), and buying in bulk is definitely cheaper, at least now I've sorted out how to store it somewhere safe and dry (metal flip top bins with plastic inner buckets, as a matter of fact). In the case of Feeder Mix Extra, for example, it's £1.96 per kilo (£24.99 for the sack), compared to £2.92 buying it in smaller bags. The only problem is that they tend to deliver the bags in twos in cardboard boxes which are therefore very heavy to carry! I usually arrange for delivery to my work address, and then have to lug them from our reception to my car, always trying to remember health and safety guidance on lifting as I grunt and strain boot-wards. I only buy the smaller bags of nyjer seed, though, partly because it's very expensive (£9.99 for a 3kg bag, £29.50 for the 12.75kg sack) and partly because I don't need to refill the feeder so often, as it's a specialised food for goldfinches (and once in a while a siskin).

Mind you, the ground feeder mix is even more expensive, now I come to think about it (£30.99 per sack) - but that's the main one that was being scoffed by the pigeons so shouldn't need so much any more.

I've also got quite a lot of suet and fat treats for my money, especially as the suet cakes were on half-price offer (£1.74 each rather than £3.49) so I got six - they aren't lasting long at the moment. I also got some square suet cakes as different birds seem to like different styles of fat feeder - the woodpeckers and rooks like the round cakes and fat balls, the starlings like the sprinkles and nibbles, the bluetits and finches like the square cakes. And the pigeons don't bother with them. Result!

As hobbies go, bird feeding can be quite pricey, but I've tried "budget" feeds before and ended up with a lot of uneaten seed, to be honest - false economy, definitely. And in my view, if it isn't from the RSPB or maybe the BTO, then why bother? The quality of the product is much better from the people who know and care about the birds, and their profits are going to help other birds, not lining the pocket of someone who's bulked up their bird feed with rubbish stuff anyway!

And it's a much cheaper and healthier way of relieving stress than taking up smoking...

Pigeons still around - but not so fat!

It's been a couple of weeks since I pigeon-proofed my feeders and bird tables, and generally it seems to have worked in at least stopping the pigeons eating everything and leaving nothing for the smaller birds - but they are still hanging around in large numbers, and still attempting to get into the feeders and onto the tables! Are they too stupid to realise they can't, or too clever and know that persistence will pay off in the end? As more and more gather I start to feel I'm in Hitchcock's "The Birds" and that they'll eventually knock over the feed tables by sheer weight of numbers!

One definite benefit has been not having to constantly refill feeders and tables on a slightly more than daily basis, now it's a couple of times a week, which shows just how much the pigeons were taking. I was originally worried I was also excluding blackbirds but have now seen them feeding on the tables regularly. I'm going to invest in a proper ground feeder sanctuary from the RSPB though, not sure the upturned hanging baskets are quite accessible enough for birds their size - fine if you want to feed the sparrow-sized birds, though.

The one food item I am having to keep in constant supply is any fat treat (suet nibbles, fat balls, suet cakes, whatever) - it's that time of year when they're all either breeding or raising chicks and they all need that extra energy boost. The starlings are keenest on the nibbles in the peanut feeder and squabble over them, but just lately the fat balls and suet cake have been graced by several jackdaws and a large rook who has managed to find a suitable place on the tree to grasp while he rips chunks of fat off (usually with the jackdaws hanging about below to catch anything he drops). Is it wrong of me to try keeping the pigeons away while being happy to watch a rook eating me out of house and home? He's an impressive sight, which the pigeons are not, so that's my justification!

Meanwhile, one more visitor may be suffering due to the pigeon-proofing, might let him have a few loose peanuts by way of compensation...