We are new to feeding our local birds, having put up our first feeder this past spring. We have just moved to New Mexico. I have a dumb question for the experienced bird watchers. How do birds find their food? From the books and websites I've read, birds find the feeders visually. How do they identify the feeders as containing food? Sorry if this is really naive.

We just put up our first suet cage. We hung it in the branches of a purple plum tree where the previous owners had also had a suet cage. Within an hour, the jays and thrashers had found it and were pecking away. We also hung a mesh bag with suet in the branches of a redbud which has suffered a lot of winter damage. No birds went near this bag, even when we moved it to the plum tree. We took the bag down and put the suet into the cage where it was devoured immediately.

On the second day after the suet was hung, we had grosbeaks and bushtits (I think) on the suet cage. These have never come into our yard before. Do they watch the jays and thrashers and follow their lead? The thrashers have been regular visitors to the pole feeder we put up with seed mix in April.

According to some of the older GW posts, chickadees should be the first to find new feeders. So far it's been 4 days and we have yet to see a chickadee anywhere near the feeders. I'm very confused.

Cheryl