You may have better responses over on the Bird forum in Nature section.

The seed mixtures generally contain a lot of millet which is of little nutritional value. Most of it will be scattered by the birds looking for the good stuff. You're better of buying black oil sunflower seeds for the seed eaters (cardinals, grosbeaks, tufted titmouse, etc) thistle for the finches (sock feeders) and suet for the woodpeckers (and others; not all birds eat suet). Having in-shell peanuts will make squirrels and blue jays happy! As the weather warms up, jelly feeders for orioles and sugar water for hummingbirds can be added.

All this effort does have a bit more expense but will overall be less expensive due to less waste and may also discourage some birds that you don't want hanging around.

I agree with dees_1. Birds also enjoy bread. If you have someone who can take a 2 X 4 board, about 3 feet long and drill 3 holes not quite all the way through, then put dowels under each hole for perches, you can make your own homemade bird feeder to attach to a tree or fence The food you make gets packed in the holes. There are homemade bird food recipes online that involve peanut butter, some lard, dried fruits, seeds and nuts, etc. That food is packed in the holes. Our birds love it. We've had to stop feeding the birds due to the squirrels that are now living in our attic until we can get a pest control company out here to fix things.

Thanks Dees. There's never much action over on the nature forums this time of year but the KT is always busy! :)

I'll have to look up the difference in sunflower seeds and black oil sunflower seeds. One day I sifted the seed so that I could get a good amount of sunflower seeds for the cardinals. They didn't have any interest in them! I want to cater to them because they are always around. Don't they have the most beautiful beaks? Such pretty birds, even if they aren't super sweet to each other.

And speaking of super sweet.... my hubs loves his mourning dove pairs. They have been his favs for years now. Today was the first time I've seen them feeding on top of the shed. They made quick work of the available seed. I'm hoping this won't be a problem??? Are they going to be a nuisance? Will hubs and I be at each others throats over the mourning doves??? :)

I really don't want to attract squirrels into the yard. Love watching them but the dogs love watching them, too. Lots of barking. Hope they stay over in the woods. And blue jays... they've always swooped down and stolen dry cat food. I've read they will eat the eggs and kill the young song birds. I really like blue jays. Anyone have thoughts on that subject?

hi lindaohnowga. I was just reading an article about making your own bird feed but doubt I would do that more than a time or two. Not that I'm very very lazy... just a little lazy. :) But I saw a cool way to use up your leftover fruit by running twine through it and hanging it in a tree. That's more my style!

Can't wait to get my hummer feeders out. Won't be much longer now although ours didn't show up until June last year. Hope they aren't so late this year!

Don't be so quick to assume the birds don't like something--a certain type of feeder or seed. They might just need some time to decide to approach it. Sunflower seeds come in two types--black oil and striped. The black oil is the most popular and used by the most types of birds. The goldfinch that visit my yard like the sunflower more than thistle--I don't bother with the extra feeder anymore.

My cats are indoor ones, so the birds have the only problem with my resident squirrels . I think I have about six who live in my yard all year. I feed a mix of sunflower and regular supplementing with extra sunflower seed. I also always have a suet hanging on the magnolia tree. I get three kinds of woodpeckers.

Thanks for posting, junco! After seeing your name and looking it up, I realized that some of our little sparrows are juncos. I'll be patient. Thank you!

lily - I've been paying more attention to the woodpeckers lately, too. There are quite a few of the red bellied ones. I think I would like to hang suet for them as well. Like the cardinals, they seem to always be around. My hubs says he has seen many pileated but I haven't seen any. Maybe I have the wrong imagine in my mind. :)

We used to put out bird feeders, but they kept being emptied over night. Wouldn't have been too bad, but it was bears! Did not want to have them visiting. Poor birds by us are on their own now.

Yes, buy black oil sunflower sees, buy peanuts and also wild bird seed, don't buy stuff with corn in it. And yes, also have suet too, hang it up, we had woodpeckers of all sizes peck at it and then chickadees. We had squirrels and that is why we had the peanuts and not in the shell either to keep them from stealing and running off with the suet, etc. It also depends on what birds you have come as they do have speciality foods, I was at one point buying this small bird seed as we were getting certain birds to eat it. Its very expensive to feed birds but its great as you get to watch them and enjoy them alot. We bought the huge bags of black oil sunflower seeds and peanuts and wild bird seed. I put them all in bins and containers in them to scoop and take outside and put it where ever you put it all for the birds.

When I think of squirrel problems, continuing feeding on top the shed sounds like a good idea! At least I don't have to worry about bears, though. :)

Feeding the birds isn't cheap, but has numerous benefits: watching them, having them in your yard for insect control, etc. For decades, in my hanging feeders I have used pure sunflower hearts (no shells, no mess and no waste) which I mix with a little safflower seed (for the cardinals) and small amounts of peanut hearts. That's it. It's perfect for me. I also always do suet for the woodpeckers (downy and hairy) and the flickers as well as the nuthatches and chickadees. The juncos and cardinals are more groundfeeders, but there's plenty of scattered seed for them and for the mourning doves. I gave up on any pre-mixed bird seed as the millet filler is just a waste of money.

The cost of bird seed certainly has increased in recent years but I'd go without chocolate to keep feeding the birds! 20# of sunflower hearts = $48 but lasts at least a month for me. The biggest problem is to not buy too much near the end of winter, so I don't have leftovers stored in the summer (moth damage no matter how I store it, and not room in my freezer to keep it). AND not filling feeders into April -- last year I procrastinated taking them down, and was visited by a black bear who turned my heavy-duty steel feeder post into a pretzel. Never did find the feeders... =(

More and more grateful that there isn't a bear problem here!

This weekend I'm going to do a little more googling. I'm thinking how happy DH would be if we were catering to the doves mostly. They seem very happy with this blend I'm using but I'll research a little. They eat a lot but it would be nice to feed all of them with one type of feed.

Oh, roxanna's post got me to wondering if most of you feed only in the winter??? Or is that only if you have a bear problem?

I put out suet and seed because I want as many birds as possible. I buy my suet from Lowes because it's the cheapest I can find.

Ugh, the doves are piggies! I have window feeders and love the platform, but the doves sometimes camp out all day.

I used to feed all year round until a bear killed one of my dogs, and the Game Commission guy said I was attracting bears with my feeders. So now I feed post-hibernation (which was very late this season) to pre-emergence.

After years of experimentation I feed only black oil seed and suet, plus cracked corn and millet on the ground for the doves and juncos. I gave up my thistle seed feeder. I also gave up feeding fresh suet from the butcher. It was hard to find, more expensive than the pre-formed cakes, and the birds seemed to like the cakes just as well or better.

Birds in the woodpecker family are my most frequent visitors to the suet. I buy the cakes at Agway or Walmart, and I've noticed if given a choice the birds will go first to Woodpecker Treat, made by C&S. I buy a variety, though, including boxes of 8 cakes with minimal packaging.

I believe cardinals are largely ground feeders, although I've seen them at the oil seed and also the suet. When I scatter the ground seed I include some black oil seeds for the cardinals.

I buy 50-lb. bags of black oil seed from Agway, usually $18 to $20. They sell all sorts of other seeds, but I try to control myself. :-)

Boy, the squirrels would sure love that huge bird feeder, flowerlover. Doesn't the seed get moldy, buggy when you use so much?

Beautiful feeder!

I want to caution those that may read that birds don't eat a particular seed type in one person's yard, that regionally, and by species, the story will be different. White millet is a favorite with the ground-feeding sparrows here. And while milo is frequently vilified as just a cheap filler and to avoid mixes that include it, I have doves that choose to eat all of the milo first out of freshly spread seed. While others rave about safflower, our birds tend to just waste it.

My my dog takes care of scaring off the squirrels. She catches one every 2-3 years, and that is enough to keep them in check. They did start coming back when we put this one up, but they only foraged on the ground, thankfully. (We did have problems with them skydiving at a different one years ago.) My dog did catch one two days ago. Thankfully, I was outside in the garage and heard it screaming. My dog dropped him as soon as I told her to. Poor thing was petrified, but I only saw slobber marks--no bites. I have seen no squirrels since then. So, not a problem....so far. But, that is a good point to make since others may have different experiences.

The birds go through the whole feeder in less than a week, so no mold so far! (Crosses fingers)

Kathy, thanks!

Gyr, good points.

We buy a large bag of peanuts and mixed bird feed. My hubby cleans a spot under the fir tree and spreads it around. First the crows come in, that after that the blue birds and then all the others, even squirrels. He does this every Sunday morning. You can see the spotter crow sitting on a wire just waiting for him.

My birds await the first dump of seed in the morning. They hang out in the holly trees then come quickly once they hear the window close.

How I miss feeding the birds! But in my neighborhood, the kitties appreciate the smorgasbord. :(

I only feed thistle, sunflower, and suet. And I'm thinking of stopping the thistle. I, too, how found that even though I am buying the thistle specifically for finches - both gold and purple finches - they prefer the sunflower.

I never feed millet or corn. It attracts rodents, coons, squirrels, and sparrows. DH calls this trash feed because it attracts trash birds (sparrows.)

Woodpeckers like the suet. I rarely see a pileated woodpecker, though. They are easy to spot because they are surprisingly large. Twice as large as a blue jay.

There is usually a lot of fallen sunflower under my feeder because the goldfinches aren't real careful. The cardinals eat it off the ground, but so do the squirrels. So I guess I have to suffer the squirrels to have the cardinals.

In my main feeder, I use sunflower seed and a coarse mix that would pass for chicken feed. For the finch feeder, I load it with a small seed finch mix and add an extra layer of nijer seed. Yellow finches go nuts over nijer seed. I buy very little bird seed at pet food stores because the prices in our local pet food stores are higher than farm style stores. The best bargain is large bags of sunflower seed particularly at this time of the season; Stores are putting bird seed on sale to clear the shelves for spring and summer.

We save heels and bread ends and turn them into bread crumbs. The birds love them.

I guess bread is better than nothing, but the experts say that bread isn't a good choice of food to feed birds. They say that birds need fat, not carbs.

Bread and birds

I've never had luck with feeding our birds bread. I keep the bread crumbs for us ;-)

Yesterday I bought some black oil sunflower seeds and 2 suets... one for the song birds and one for the woodpeckers. I haven't put it out for the woodpeckers yet because I'm not sure where I'm going to place it.

Today, bird-wise, our most enjoyment came from birds that weren't feeding from the offered seed, but privet berries. I was thinking what a waste to have a berry-baring plant that the birds don't care for. I was wrong. Waxwings! They were so much fun to watch. We first saw them yesterday and today they returned and stayed awhile longer. Fun birds!

Thanks to all of you. You have been a huge help! :)

berry-baring... haha! I could go edit but that would take the fun out of it!

nekkid berries are fun, no matter who you are :-)

I remember when Cedar Waxwings arrived at our Autumn Olive bushes. So beautiful! And they passed berries to one another, which was fascinating to watch. It happened only that one year. In fact, we used to have many more birds here than we do now. Evening Grosbeaks, Redpolls, Towhees . . . once regulars, but I haven't seen them in years.

I haven't seen grosbeaks in years. When we first moved here, we did see some. Grosbeaks are grazers; They do not regularly return to the same spot each day. The entire flock will feed fora few minutes in one location and then move on. They roam from spot to spot in a random fashion. it might be a few days before you see the clock again for a few minutes. Sadly, these grazers are gone from my location. Maybe it because 5 to 6 more subdivisions have been fully developed with more coming. My town has grown from 5000 to over 10,000.

When we lived in our previous house in the early 70s I hand-tamed the birds. It was a marvelous experience. The grosbeaks would land all over me, as would others. I wanted to do the same thing here, but I developed Raynaud's syndrome and couldn't stay barehanded out in the cold--necessary for the hand-taming process.

I followed the directions in this book, and it worked perfectly.

Hand-Taming Wild Birds at the Feeder

We once had a huge thirty foot holly tree, and when the waxwings covered it - it was a sight to remember. Sadly the encroachment of houses has deleted our bird population.

We have a wall of holly trees across from our window feeder. The birds love it in there. Red cardinals in the green holly=beautiful.

So far none of the birds have gone anywhere near the suet. I'm going to remove it from the basket and place it on top of the shed for a few days. If and when they begin to go for it, I will then transfer it back into the basket and hang it close by. Hope that will help and that I'm not being too impatient!

How long has the suet been out? My woodpeckers love it. I'd LOVE to get a pileated on the platform!

Since Friday, mimipadv. This particular suet is for the song birds. I haven't yet put out the one for the woodpeckers.

I think I should have given them more time but I just went and put the suet cake on top the shed. Lots of patience here! : )

You might try a different brand of suet if they don't show up soon.

I'll attempt to be a little more patient before trying another brand. This is a C&S product and is a cherry treat. The woodpecker suet is also from that same company.

In between rain showers, the birds are eating the suet. What a mess! But it's just an old shed roof so I guess it will be ok. I haven't put out any seed today so feel bad about that since they have to "take turns" at the suet. Later I'll throw some seed up there, too.

I dont always have the money to buy seed and suet so I have been making up my own suet, I use 3 slices of stale bread and cover them with peanut butter, its a bit messy on your fingers but you can just lick off, or in my case my dog loves peanut butter LOL.......

Raining all day here and yes, my window gets smears with suet and seed.

Worth it ;-)

christine - I would probably lick my own fingers. My dogs views on peanut butter... "what kind of pill are you trying to get me to take this time?" :)

mimipadv! I just had my first blue bird! Before I could really enjoy his presence, something scared off all the birds, darn it. From what I've read, blue birds can be hard to attract so I wasn't expecting to see one so soon. Hopefully this one will come back and bring a friend or two.