I suddenly like crows! There's a big black crow killing and eating a mole in the backyard. That's a first; never have seen that before.

 

This includes some feeding of the bird, but that is not the main attraction. Awesome!! He is 30 years old.

 

My cold little friends.

 

Poor birds! They obviously think it's spring with the brighter feathers! I had one of those feeders, and the goldfinch seemed to prefer the thistle bag instead. I gave up on the feeder and the thistle bags as they got too messy. The goldfinch seem to be quite content dining on sunflower seeds in one feeder and a nice mix of sunflower, safflower and some nuts in the other feeder.

 

I haven’t been too successful with a mixed bird seed. Many of my birds and squirrels will empty a bird feeder within a day or two by discarding the unfavorable while searching for their favorite seed or nut. I now use sunflower chips and all appear to be happy.

Gary

 

Right now I am feeding thistle in one feeder and sunflower seed in another feeder. Most of the birds are happy with the exception of the sparrows. They don't seem to like either seed.

 

We have 3 thistle feeders and 3 sunflower feeders. Always lots of cleanup for all 6, especially the thistle. In fact, I did some today. Even tho its a pain in the butt, we enjoy the birds too much to stop. Two days ago I counted 16 cardinals sitting on the low branches at the same time. I would have taken a picture but its to hard to see the females because they blend in so much.

 

Our goldfinches completely ignore the thistle feeder and much prefer the 3 sunflower feeders. So, I replaced the thistle feeder with a suet basket for the wood-peckers.

 

Come on Gene... its not one or the other. We have suet baskets that hang on 'both' ends of the sunflower feeders.

 

Our birds have not paid much attention to the suet this year. Not sure why that is....I've tossed out more than they have eaten. The Carolina Wren used to be a big consumer but hasn't been around much. Did anyone else hear that many of the Carolina Wren did not survive the winter of 2015?

As far as seed mixes, I learned not to buy the cheap stuff with the fillers. Some of my birds do like the safflower, and the feeder with the mix of safflower, sunflower etc, gets emptied frequently with no tossing of seed on the ground, just the usual mess. I'm sure they would be fine with just sunflower, but I think I'm giving them a treat if the seed includes safflower, nuts and some fruit...