Kitchen Garden Forum

We have been delighted this summer to have a couple of families of goldfinches come to our garden to feed on a daily basis for the first time. I have been trying to discover whether they migrate or not because I haven,t seen any for a couple of days. It appears that some may over-winter here and I'd like to know whether we should continue to put Niger seed feeder tubes out because these seem to be the only finches that feed on them. The greenfinches and chaffinches don't seem to touch them although they do use the other feeder tubes..

No.

http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdgui ... index.aspx

We have lots of goldfinches in the garden especially over winter and spring.

At the moment we have lots of juveniles that haven't yet got their red faces.

They absolutely love sunflower hearts.

My previous neighbour fed goldfinches (and other birds, too, if they took a fancy) right through each winter. They were a delight to watch, a ray of sunshine through the dark days.

The goldfinches in my garden prefer the sunflower hearts over the niger seed as do most of the other garden birds.

You will find that if you leave some seeds on the lavender and evening primroses they will eat these during bad spells of weather in winter. The redpoll also like the evening primrose seeds so it is good to leave a few in.

If you have an agricultural feeds merchant you can buy a 25 kilo sack of sunflower hearts for about £30. They also sell 25 kilo sacks of wild bird seed for £13 for ordinary (with more wheat) and £17 for the superior. Also their peanuts are much cheaper.

We don't feed the birds at all from about April to November but as we are surrounded by lots of trees, shrubs, pasture, wildflower meadows and a few gardens, I think they get enough natural food there.

And, especially for the goldfinches, we always leave all the teasel and lavender seedheads on because the birds really love those. Sometimes, the teasels sway from side to side under the weight of the goldfinches trying to get out the seeds!

We feed birds all year round as recommended by the BTO. We find that if there is more natural food at certain times then they come to the garden less frequently.

Maybe if you live in the middle of the country they will find more natural food .

glallotments wrote:
Maybe if you live in the middle of the country they will find more natural food .

I often wonder about this particularly in areas such as ours where a lot of hedgerows are replaced by banks of stone and earth.

We feed heavily year round and couldn't it on a pension. Probably £40 a month just on bird seed, fat balls and now we tried those fat noodles instead of nuts, they are supposed to include insects. How do they do that?

I must take your advice and explore our feed merchant.

I stopped buying nuts because only the woodpecker eats some and most go rotten in the feeder, we do have goldfinches feeding

Try mixed corn from a chicken feed supplier I pay less than £7 for 20 kilos and the birds love it

My Mum does the same thing Robo and her garden is always full of birds.

there were a couple in my MIL's garden yesterday.

We use two Droll Yankee niger seed feeders for the goldfinches, one is 23" the other is 36".

Goldies have been noticeable by their almost complete absence during last few weeks and seed had succumbed to the damp weather and gone pretty solid.
Beginning of this week I cleaned feeders and filled completely with fresh seed.

Can tell we are in for rough weather, goldies are back. Counted 17 on feeders at one time yesterday and just counted 12 on them.
Seed already gone done by 18".

Mixed corn ?

I stopped buying seed with a lot of what I though was barley or maybe wheat, the birds seem to throw it out and it always sprouts.

As we only feed sunflower hearts and home-made fat blocks in hanging feeders, we try to avoid feeding any pigeons (or their long-tailed furry friends), but unfortunately as I was hanging the sunflower feeder up today, I dropped it, leaving a neat ground area covered with lots of food. I was out all day, but I bet the pigeons had a lovely time!

Siskin numbers have swelled to around 10 and goldfinches and bullfinches are there in great numbers, but not a single brambling as yet, very unusual for us at this time of the year.