What is the best food for bird feeding?
You can generally buy peanuts, suet (energy) balls, mixed seeds, mealworms or suet pellets.
Different birds like different foods, for instance, birds who eat insects love suet which is a mix of beef fat and seed.
Small birds will like smaller seeds for obvious reasons. If you have particular breeds which visit your garden regularly, research what will attract them.
Which bird feeder will stop starlings?
Starlings are part of the bird world and often get a bad rap, but if you also have smaller birds visiting your garden, they often don’t get a look in with the swarms of starlings pushing their way in and eating everything first.
We will be honest with you here – we saw several advertise themselves as starling-proof but a whole host of user reviews said that they still kept coming. Cages which can keep out pigeons and squirrels often don’t work.
They’re clever and small enough to get near feeders made for smaller birds. To stop the starlings, professionals say that a slightly more difficult project usually has to be undertaken which will involve putting out the food they don’t like, and clearing away potential nest areas.
But there is a good chance you don’t want to stop them feeding and coming altogether, as they still need food and numbers are in decline. You especially shouldn’t rid possible nest areas in this case. A feeder with very narrow chicken wire around it may help, but some can still get their beaks through and you don’t want to stop other breeds.
So, we are afraid to say that providing enough variety of feeding stations may be the only way! Starlings will likely favour a ground feeder as it is easier for them to use, which may leave hangers to the little ones. You could also put some food out for them to eat, wait until they have gone elsewhere and then fill up the rest.