Bird Feeding Setup Pt 1

I’ve found through my own experience that if you want to attract a certain type of bird to your feeder, you need to get the food they like, and make sure your feeder can accommodate their size. For example, if I want to have Blue Jays come to my feeder, I get peanuts. They love peanuts with the shell on most in my opinion, but they also eat shelled peanuts as well. I have a flat tray style feeder hanging from my stand, and they seem to feel comfortable landing on it. I also have a ring style peanut feeder, but the birds around my area struggle to get them out and don’t use it as much. When I want to attract Woodpeckers, I make sure to have suet out as that’s what they seem to love most. They will however land on my seed cylinder style feeder and eat from there quite a lot as well. If I put suet nuggets in my tray, Red-bellied Woodpeckers will often sit and pluck those out.

I have A LOT of different types of feeders, and have varying amounts of success with each one. My favorite is my hanging tray feeder from Kingsyard. They make really great products and I love using their feeders made from recycled materials as they hold up really well to the harsh weather here in Iowa. A lot of different size birds will use the tray and it can hold a large volume of feed of any type.

The next feeder I have, is a hopper. The hopper I use is also made of recycled materials and has been in my yard for several years now. Hoopers can hold a TON of bird feed, and mine can also hold two suet cakes on either side as well. Woodpeckers and nuthatch land on the suet feeders quite often, and a lot of the smaller finch size birds love feeding from the seed. I normally put a little bit of a cheaper blend of seed in this feeder, as a lot of the birds like to scatter and flick it out. I have this feeder hanging from a shepherd hook, and for the most part it works out well, but the squirrels love to hang on this one and eat the seed. Even with a baffle I can’t seem to keep them off and they ca waste a lot of feed.

A really popular feeder in my set up is a cylinder feeder. There are a lot of different types of seed cakes you can get to go on these and they attract so many different types. I tend to get woodpecker specific varieties because that’s what I like to see most, but all birds enjoy it just the same. My only issues with cylinders is that if they get wet, they tend to get moldy really quickly, so if I’m able to run out quick before a storm I will put it away until it passes. This feeder is a really big hit with the Red-bellied Woodpeckers in my area!