Anyone feed wild Finches/Birds?

[Barb]

Just wondering if anyone also feeds wild finches and other birds?

I love sitting on my deck listening to the outdoor birds and have about 12 birdfeeders including Hummingbird feeders as well.

So relaxing and entertaining.

[Rox]

Yes, guilty as charged!

The wild birds even get left over millet spray (they waste nothing!) and I put out dried mealworms and fruit for them, along with seed. Thanks to this, we have a great variety of different birds in the garden now.

We love watching them too and they have us well trained, calling in the evenings for their supper...

[MiaCarter]

Moi aussi!

I never really get finches, just sparrows and grackles and so forth.
My mum lives on a canal, so she gets all sorts of wonderful water birds and otters and alligators. It's wonderful.

You know what our birds especially love is cat food!
We put cat food out for the ferals/stray cats at night. We put it on our screened in porch and prop the door open a bit. Well, a couple smart birds discovered the left overs, so they'll come in the porch to eat the leftovers in the mornings.
I put a bird feeder out there, but they ignore it in favor of cat food. Go figure.
I can always tell when they're here as the cats line up at the slider to watch them!
You can always tell the newbies from the veterans, as the newbies get confused by the screens, whereas the veterans know there's only one way out. (I have to go out there every few days to help chase some poor stressed, confused newbie bird away from the screens and toward the door. )

We also get some big birds on occasion.
We're not big carnivores. I don't eat meat at all, but my husband will on occasion and he'll get a bird for Thanksgiving. We'll put the carcass outside when we're done and what comes is incredible! Enormous turkey vultures (which I simply love to watch - so much personality!) and if you're lucky, bald eagles! It's incredible to watch them. They are HUGE!

I have a beautiful handmade hummingbird feeder too but that gets ignored by birds, just the bees. (As an aside, can you keep a hummingbird in an aviary? I know they can't do birdcages, but I wonder if they do large aviaries? They're so gorgeous and clever! They'd be delightful to watch! Not legal here in the US, but in other countries?)

[sgolds]

Oh, I love my outdoor feeders! We get a wonderful assortment here! For finches w get mostly house finches. Since we get a lot of migrating birds coming thru, we never know what we will see.

On a reg basis, we get cardinal, blue jays, chickadees, house finches, doves and sparrows. We've also had many buntings, painted and indigo, some colorful warblers stop buy on their way up north.

[finchmix22]

sgolds
Here we cant get the same birds. The typical ones are the sparrows, mockingbirds, doves, and some cardinals and bluejays. If you live out more in the country, you can see the painted buntings and other interesting birds. Around my house, we see swallows and house finches and some red headed finches and robins too!

[KarenB]

I've always fed the outdoor birds. I routinely put out suet and black oil sunflower for everybody, and sugar water for the hummers. I usually get downy woodpeckers, chickadees, cardinals, blue jays, mockingbirds, mourning and white-winged doves, inca doves and house sparrows. Last year there was a pair of red-breasted nuthatches coming to the suet. It was so cool, they are adorable.

I have had my property certified as a wildlife habitat, so I plant for wildlife, offer water sources, food and shelter year-round. I find it very rewarding, knowing my property is an oasis for wildlife. Even my finches, which are in flights next to the windows, appreciate seeing the outdoor birds. I actually think they wish they were out there with them.

[Corkysgirl]

I love feeding the birds. I get many of the birds you listed above. I have a lot of the male slated junko's. I have a chick that was just born that has the same coloring. Was a surprise to me! On Mother's day at 3:00am I kept hearing a banging on the second story window. My dog was going crazy. I went over and it was a male yellow finch trying to get in. It kept hovering and hitting the window over and over. It was so cool! We also have acrobatic chipmunks eating from the squirrel proof feeder. He's not supposed to be able to eat from it but he balances his weight on a branch so he doesn't weigh down the bar and fills his cheeks. He's so cute! We live on a river backed up to mountains. So many birds here. Our house we're moving into soon, 2 miles from here, as my father in-law died, is in open fields and mountains with a running stream. He has a lot of bird feeders on his property, and humming birds galore. But the bugs!!!

[Corkysgirl]

The river behind our house.

[MiaCarter]

Corkysgirl --- Oh, so gorgeous!

It looks like the area where I used to vacation growing up, in the Adirondacks. Such wonderful memories. What I wouldn't give to go back.

[Corkysgirl]

It is beautiful! I have family in NY. I have family everywhere really with 8 brother/sisters, nieces/nephews, 3 grown kids. My son lives here. It is beautiful upstate NY. I have family in the Warwick, Albany and Candor/Spencer area. I came here kicking and screaming. My husband always wanted to move back near his family. His father took ill so we did. That's his house in the foreground on the right. His brother's house on the left. His family lives 5 houses in a row, 2 miles from us. We're on that river. We're fixing up his father's house to move into, though we do have our garden there already. We have turkeys, chickens, raise beef. It's really nice. But...it's secluded and hard to buy food, if you don't grow it, you have to drive far to buy it. Hold onto the memories! You never know what the future holds either.