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!