When to give up feeding.
My neighbors say there are suit eating birds in my neighborhood.
I put out a suit feeder with commercial suit (= no peanut butter) in the first week of November. It is 6 weeks later and I have not seen any change to the suit or birds arriving.
Should I give up and donate my suit feeder to a neighbor?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Richard Guffanti on -
I wish to thank everyone who replied to my post.
I have not seen any evidence of a bird visiting my suit feeder for 8 weeks.
The suit is completely in tact and is not rancid.
In response to your suggestions, the day after the blizzard (12/28) I moved it to my neighbor's yard.He has most of the recommendations.
a] Rarely sees a cat.
b] A tube feeder with cheep feed (some sunflower seeds)
c] A near by evergreen tree which the birds fly to every few minutes.
d] Daily, he gets lots of Sparrows, a few Juncos. Weekly he gets a few Mourning Doves. Rarely he gets a Cardinal.
e] Never seen a pigeon. There have been hawk sightings in a park 5 blocks away (1/2 mi)
f] Squirrels are frequent visitors.The suit feeder is designed to keep larger birds out. It is a cage within a cage.
I put the suit both in the feeder and on the ground.
The Juncos and Sparrows are not interested.I'll let you know if it attracts anything.
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Permalink Reply by Claire Nemes on -
Juncos and sparrows will not typically come to hanging suet feeders; they prefer to scratch for their seed on the ground as opposed to clinging onto a suet cage. I did have one opportunistic house sparrow (boo) who hung out beneath my suet feeder and ate up the crumbs that fell when a woodpecker would drill on it; have also seen, on occasion, house sparrows attempt to feed from it, but not often. I have never seen any of the native sparrow species go for the suet.
Woodpeckers and often chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, and wrens will come to suet feeders. These are all birds that investigate and probe into tree bark to find bugs--a feeding style that the suet feeders are designed to emulate.
Maybe you could try a different brand/variety of suet? In my experience some of the cheaper ones use a lot of millet and cracked corn as filler; neither of these are really attractive foods to the birds that normally come to suet.
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Permalink Reply by J B Maberry on -
Depends on the kind of suet you use....like I said much earlier, the sparrows have flocked to the suet with pepper in it (purchased at Wild Bird Unlimited)...they absolutely love it. However, it all boils down to what, where and when they discover it and so on.
Claire Nemes said:
Juncos and sparrows will not typically come to hanging suet feeders; they prefer to scratch for their seed on the ground as opposed to clinging onto a suet cage. I did have one opportunistic house sparrow (boo) who hung out beneath my suet feeder and ate up the crumbs that fell when a woodpecker would drill on it; have also seen, on occasion, house sparrows attempt to feed from it, but not often. I have never seen any of the native sparrow species go for the suet.
Woodpeckers and often chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, and wrens will come to suet feeders. These are all birds that investigate and probe into tree bark to find bugs--a feeding style that the suet feeders are designed to emulate.
Maybe you could try a different brand/variety of suet? In my experience some of the cheaper ones use a lot of millet and cracked corn as filler; neither of these are really attractive foods to the birds that normally come to suet.
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Permalink Reply by Richard Guffanti on
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My original question "When to give up feeding?" has been answered.
I was trying to attract suit eaters to my suit feeder.
At this point I have had my feeder in three locations for a month at a time.
Two of the locations have many seed eating birds visiting daily.
No new birds have arrived. That is, no suit eating birds have arrived.
I have concluded
a] There are few suit eating birds in my neighborhood.b] The ones here have found other sources.
c] I gave up trying to attract them.
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Permalink Reply by Mary Thall on -
I'll take your suit feeder. I go through a suet cake every other day. I have mine out all year and it never last long. Maybe they don't like where you have it. My suet is not near my seed feeders either. It's on the other side of the house away from them. I'll still have to think something is causing them not to come to yours. Something may be scaring them away.
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