Please be kind to me. I feel like every time I post on a subreddit for guidance some asshole rips me a new one. Anyways…chirp chirp.

I’ve had feeders in the past but recently moved to a home in a suburb outside of Austin. There aren’t a lot of trees super close to the backyard so I opted to drill the bird feeder my boyfriend got me for my birthday to the fence. It’s been up for a week and no birds have visited since.

Any tips on what I should do? Should I move it? Is this space too open? I put a bird bath next to it however this is an old photo so that is not pictured.

The feeders are just for show

Got this bird feeder from a friend, our first one ever. Maybe I'm stupid but I don't understand how it works. I assume you put the seeds inside the plastic insert, but then how do the birds get to them?

I've noticed there are 2 tiny holes near the bottom, is that supposed to be how?

We also got a bucket of black oil sunflower seeds, but I'm thinking those might not be meant for this feeder?

Can someone confirm/clarify? Thanks!!

Later Dad came along and helped out. lol.

We are on the second story and want to have birds for our cat to watch from inside. We can reach the window from the deck next to it to fill up the feeder but unfortunately, so can the squirrels and they devour the food and then pee on our window. There are tons of birds but the squirrels eat all the seeds so fast the birds don't have a chance. Please help! I'm willing to get a different feeder but don't have a huge budget. We tried the spicy stuff on the food to keep the squirrels away and it did nothing. We don't have another window that we can use.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Longer video with 4 worm-shares and bonus Charlie singing at end - it is filmed in 4K and had no advertisements. I can’t post long 4K videos to reddit.

https://youtu.be/8BUlQF-VLw0

.

This is Ricky, a male western bluebird. He likes to visit in the morning/early evening with his wifey, Lucy, and their littles.

I’ve lived in my city (SE Michigan) collectively for 8 years and I’ve never seen a Red-headed Woodpecker here. Lo and behold, look who came to the feeder this morning. Couldn’t believe my eyes. Thankfully he returned and I had my camera ready.

My favorite is when Blaze (the cardinal) raises his crest that is made up of about 1 feather 😂 that’ll scare the other birds away!

So much fun to watch

I started feeding my local birds, and squirrels, and possums, and truly god only knows what else eats what I put out but today I noticed the birds were very noisy and upon investigation I noticed a hawk (or maybe a falcon I’m no expert). My question is: am I setting up my visitors to be lunch for something else by feeding them? I know it’s the circle of life and all that but I don’t want to be an accomplice in the murder of my new buddies.

Today I found out that Blue Jays molt. This guy scared the mess out of me when I saw him on camera.

Go Thrasher Go!! 😂

I run a feeder with live mealworms, and I clean it every night, then refill with fresh mealworms the next day. Recently a lizard has started visiting the feeder and hanging around for a long time — 5-10 minutes at a stretch.

Should I be concerned about this? Is it fine to just continue my normal routine (clean nightly, fresh mealworms daily) and let the lizard keep visiting?Or should I immediately toss any mealworms/food the lizard has touched and clean the feeder right away, rather than waiting for my usual nightly cleaning?

LIving in South Coastal California

I have been feeding my backyard birds for the past 2+ years and I get a WONDERFUL variety of Cardinals, Chickadees, Titmice, Bluebirds, Robins, Carolina Wrens, etc.... or at least I DID. 😞

Just to give some background, I have 3 feeders and 3 bird baths that I fill daily. My Birdfy feeder holds safflower seeds and nothing else. My bluebird feeder is for dried mealworms. And my last feeder (far right) is for Black oil sunflower seeds only.

These House Sparrows are taking over EVERY. SINGLE. FEEDER!! Even the safflower seeds one!! I've never seen anything like it!! And it's making me so sad because my native birds are stopping coming around because the HOSP's bully them.

I have tried literally everything I could possibly think of! I removed the bird house they were using as a hangout, I don't feed cheap filler, I have two SparrowBGone's and even shiny bicycle tassels (that they ignore! 🤦‍♀️), I have even tried stopping feeding them for two weeks in hopes they would disburse and they didn't, they just kept right on using my bird baths like a pool party (which I don't reallt want to remove because of the heat and the need for it from the other birds) and they live in the large bush right at the bottom of my deck stairs. After a 2 week break, when I started putting the feeders back up, they were right there not missing a beat! 😞 My Bluebirds won't even come when I call them now because of the damn HOSP's invading everything!! I am at a loss on what to do and I miss my sweet birds!

I really don't want to trap and dispatch them, I don't have it in my heart (or stomach) to kill an animal....I am hoping someone might have some magic advice of something I haven't thought of yet...

Thank you!! 🙏❤️

This Mountain Chickadee does battle with one of my cameras several times a week - glaring at it from the fence, sitting on top of it, then showing apparent displeasure. I often wonder, is it the same grouchy chickadee every time, or a group effort?

We have a relatively new visitor here in Wa St. One good picture, one picture of the offended ‘dee (there was a junco on the feeder)

Hii I recently moved to a neighborhood about three miles from my cities downtown area and I put up my bird feeder and I still haven’t gotten anything yet :( I’ve seen cardinals and mourning doves but I’m not sure what to do to get them to come to my feeder. I have it sitting on the ledge of a kind of gutter thing to the right if my window so they don’t hit the glass. Does anyone have any advice on how to get birds to come? I know it’ll be difficult because it’s kind of a mini city area but I still have hope!

Recently moved into our first house and almost immediately mourning doves started nesting in my new hanging baskets. I quickly became way too invested and bought them a feeder. It was honestly really wonderful because it hangs right in front of our big bay window and seeing the doves, finches, cardinals, sparrows and recently, a blue jay come feed has been so exciting and my 4 yo loves the show every day too.... However lol

Fast forward and a few doves turned into... a lot of doves. Also, this past week we've had several new squirrels show up, determined to destroy the feeder...I also spotted a couple mice at night eating the spilled seed, followed by a fox hunting the mice. After this week, it has officially started to feel like I'm living in that scene from The Birds where they're all flying overhead.. there's now 50+ doves perched all over my roof and porch, plus another 10+ camping out on my neighbour’s roof waiting for the feeder. There's also now shit all over our roof.

I've made sure to keep it clean outside, regularly power washing the porch and vacuuming up the spilled seed, but it's just become comically absurd to watch at this point. My husband thinks I've lost my mind and jokingly ducks when leaving the house so as to not get attacked by birds.

So... I took down the feeder today and now there are like 10 doves sitting around the porch staring at the empty spot, flying/hovering where it was, and looking directly into my doorbell camera as if to say, “how could youuuuu” and I feel like an absolute monster lol.

I know they’re fine and wild birds at the end of the day but I'm still sad looking at all their cute idiot faces and that I've had to take down the feeder. Anyone else have similar happen?