How to Choose a Bird Feeder: Seed, Peanut, Suet and Fat Ball Feeders Explained

Feeders are not interchangeable. The wrong one either spills food everywhere or keeps the birds you wanted out. There are four types, and each exists for a reason.

Seed feeders

A clear tube with small ports and perches. This is the one for sunflower hearts and mixed seed, and it is the feeder most gardens should own first. Finches, tits and sparrows all use them.

The ports need to be small. Big openings let birds rake seed out onto the ground looking for the bits they like.

Miami Seed Feeder — £5.99. There is also a sunflower heart version with ports sized for hearts specifically.

Peanut feeders

A steel mesh tube. The mesh is the entire point: birds have to peck fragments off rather than take a whole nut. Whole peanuts can choke chicks, so in spring and summer a mesh feeder is not optional.

The mesh also suits how these birds feed — nuthatches and woodpeckers cling to the side and work at it.

Miami Peanut Feeder — £5.99.

Fat ball feeders

A wide wire cage that holds several fat balls at once. Starlings and sparrows feed in groups, so a feeder that takes a few at a time saves you refilling it twice a day.

Whatever you use, take fat balls out of their nylon nets first. Birds catch their feet in the netting, and it does serious damage.

Miami Fat Ball Feeder — £5.99.

Suet block feeders

A flat cage sized for a suet block. Blocks last longer than balls, which makes this a good choice if you would rather not be out there every other day, and it suits the birds that feed in long sessions.

Miami Suet Block Feeder — £5.99.

Where to hang it

• Near cover, but not touching it. Birds want a bush or tree to dart into, but a feeder pressed against dense cover gives a cat somewhere to wait. Two metres away is about right.
• Away from windows, or very close to them. The dangerous distance is the middle, where a bird has room to build up speed. Either under a metre, or well over three.
• High enough. About head height keeps it away from cats and makes refilling easy.
• Somewhere you can see it. Obvious, but the feeder you can watch from the kitchen is the one you will keep filled.

Squirrels

Squirrels will get to most feeders eventually. What helps: hanging from a thin branch or a wire rather than a post, keeping it clear of anything they can jump from (they can manage a couple of metres sideways), and a baffle above or below. Ground-feeding a little seed away from the feeder sometimes keeps them occupied elsewhere.

Cleaning

Every feeder needs washing out every week or two. Empty it, scrub with hot soapy water, rinse well and let it dry fully before refilling. Wet residue in the bottom of a tube is where mould starts. Wash your hands afterwards and use a separate brush from the kitchen ones.

Starting from scratch

One seed feeder with sunflower hearts will bring birds in within days. Add a fat ball feeder before winter and you have covered most of what visits a UK garden for under £20. The whole range is in Bird Feeders & Accessories, and there is a nest box for spring.