What have you seen

We have lots of Goldfinches around our area but for some reason none have deemed our feeders suitable for them!! Don't know why that is. Our garden is devoid of birds these days.

What a shame.  We have 2 feeders with sunflower hearts, and those are what the goldfinches go for, there can be 12 or 14 at a time, it's incredible.  They sit there for quite some time, just consuming the seeds.

Same here, Ina. We’ve lived here 30 years, and it’s amazing how the goldfinch and siskin numbers have increased in that time. We never saw any years ago, but they are now by far our most common feeder visitors. No complaints!

Sparrowhawk is my bet Nells. My sister lives in the suburbs both her & a couple of neighbours fed the local birds, this year they were almost entirely devoid of birds. All the neighbours & her work during the day & saw nothing. Then a sparrowhawk was seen regularly shooting across all the gardens like a missile. . .Taking the small birds🤷🏻‍♂️

How about that your away so much there is only an inconsistent filling of the feeders and the birds go to somewhere with a better supply of food.  When we've been away for a month or so the feeders are empty which we refill then it takes a while for the birds to return.

Long tail tits in the garden yesterday, haven't visited us for a while

We have had the same problem as Oneputt. It's taken the Woodpecker 2 weeks to relocate the fat ball feeder. Having said that he seems to have told the missus as well.

Got back home late morning, filled up feeders, squirrel must have been waiting with binoculars! 

Hi Nellie

We had the same problem until I read that the birds do not like feeders in the open, to avoid the sparrow hawks. We moved the feeders into a tree that was close to our hedges and within a week the birds started to use them. Oddly enough, if I move the feeders even within the tree, they seem reluctant to feed.

Sunflower hearts seem to be the chosen meal. Other foods are left to rot.

I have seen a Sparrowhawk flash down our drive in the past, and there is also a cat next door that keeps leaving a deposit on our garden.

BM. I've moved the fat balls to hang from a conifer branch at the back of the garden, so hopefully that will prove fruitful eventually. There are plenty of sunflower seeds about from the plants we grew earlier in the year.

Nell, try putting used teabags in the area where cats leave their deposits, our neighbours have 5 cats and by and large the teabags work for us.

Watching some Waxwings one day all the birds in the area took off as a Sparrow hawk flashed through.  Ten minutes later all the birds in the area were back feeding.  This happened several times