We have always kept our feeders at the back, in front of our garage (where we keep the feed) and they have always been very successful with up to 20 species throughout the cold season and 80-100 birds (mostly Siskins) on the coldest days.
You can have an idea of what they were like in my spring lockdown thread.
Our autumn has been mild so far, but colder weather is on the way and we should start working on the feeders very soon. But we have a problem: the feeders were on a communal area, bordering on two different neighbours’ patches of garden, which were neglected and unused and thus it didn’t matter if at the end of the season they were covered in sunflower seeds husks and bird poo. But, during the spring lockdown everybody and their 4th cousin became keen gardeners, with the only noise heard that of lawn mowers and grass trimmers, with the result that we will have to move our feeders elsewhere as the newly revamped “gardens” are here to stay.
We have 2 or 3 options, none of them ideal - the old setting was perfect, but it’s either one of those or nothing.
In the first photo you can see the general area: the last garage on the left, with the white car in front, is ours, the feeders used to be at the right, basically behind the drainpipe, next to the wall. We have 2 pole feeding stations that we used to anchor to the lower posts of the fence above the wall and also a wooden feeder of the “little house” type mounted on a sturdy wooden post.
In the second photo you can see better the wall: the feeders used to be exactly where the fake grass carpet begins and the wall ends. The carpeted bit belongs to pur upstairs neighbours and the bit behind the fence (where debris from the feeders also fell) to people we know in the yellow building. None of them are bird lovers, they are tolerant but I don’t think they would like the mess associated with the feeders on their new gardens.
Option 1: somewhat inconvenient for us but probably the best one for the birds: putting our feeding stations higher up on the wall, tying them to the fence posts: we would need to climb on the wall (slippery when wet/icy, often in the dark) to refill them up to three times a day, or use a stepladder (we do keep one in the garage). The birds could continue using the hazelnut three and the various fences as a convenient perching site. Also as you can see in photo no. 1 this location is very close to the woodland behind the garages and the feeders would also be visible from the kitchen window.
Option 2: the same place but using a free-standing pole feeding station, which could be anchored to the wall drilling a couple of holes in it and using those screws with a ring on top and a wire, but it would probably still be unstable in high winds. This would save us the hassle of going up and down a ladder but the feeders would be roughly at the same height of the wall, within reach of the neighbourhood cats.
Option 3: maybe the most obvious, but the less feasible would be to install a free-standing feeding station in our tiny strip of front garden (photo #3), but this would mean a longer trip for the birds, less perching space and lugging the feed to and from our cellar, accessible from the front door but still quite a faff.
I would go for Option 1 but are there any other suggestions?
Thanks for the help!
You can have an idea of what they were like in my spring lockdown thread.
Our autumn has been mild so far, but colder weather is on the way and we should start working on the feeders very soon. But we have a problem: the feeders were on a communal area, bordering on two different neighbours’ patches of garden, which were neglected and unused and thus it didn’t matter if at the end of the season they were covered in sunflower seeds husks and bird poo. But, during the spring lockdown everybody and their 4th cousin became keen gardeners, with the only noise heard that of lawn mowers and grass trimmers, with the result that we will have to move our feeders elsewhere as the newly revamped “gardens” are here to stay.
We have 2 or 3 options, none of them ideal - the old setting was perfect, but it’s either one of those or nothing.
In the first photo you can see the general area: the last garage on the left, with the white car in front, is ours, the feeders used to be at the right, basically behind the drainpipe, next to the wall. We have 2 pole feeding stations that we used to anchor to the lower posts of the fence above the wall and also a wooden feeder of the “little house” type mounted on a sturdy wooden post.
In the second photo you can see better the wall: the feeders used to be exactly where the fake grass carpet begins and the wall ends. The carpeted bit belongs to pur upstairs neighbours and the bit behind the fence (where debris from the feeders also fell) to people we know in the yellow building. None of them are bird lovers, they are tolerant but I don’t think they would like the mess associated with the feeders on their new gardens.
Option 1: somewhat inconvenient for us but probably the best one for the birds: putting our feeding stations higher up on the wall, tying them to the fence posts: we would need to climb on the wall (slippery when wet/icy, often in the dark) to refill them up to three times a day, or use a stepladder (we do keep one in the garage). The birds could continue using the hazelnut three and the various fences as a convenient perching site. Also as you can see in photo no. 1 this location is very close to the woodland behind the garages and the feeders would also be visible from the kitchen window.
Option 2: the same place but using a free-standing pole feeding station, which could be anchored to the wall drilling a couple of holes in it and using those screws with a ring on top and a wire, but it would probably still be unstable in high winds. This would save us the hassle of going up and down a ladder but the feeders would be roughly at the same height of the wall, within reach of the neighbourhood cats.
Option 3: maybe the most obvious, but the less feasible would be to install a free-standing feeding station in our tiny strip of front garden (photo #3), but this would mean a longer trip for the birds, less perching space and lugging the feed to and from our cellar, accessible from the front door but still quite a faff.
I would go for Option 1 but are there any other suggestions?
Thanks for the help!
