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Is there a topic on tips for attracting birds to your garden. If not... well let the fun begin.

im not quite sure if there is a topic, but i have a few tips.

1. always have a constant water supply for the birds!! personaly i think that is very important
2. try not encourage preditors like cats and dogs, as they wont come down to eat.
i have heard people say that you must not feed birds every day, as they then become lazy.
find a good garden bird seed mixture as they will be attracted to it.
i feed my fruit eaters apple, birds like barbets bulbuls and grey louries come down and eat.

hope that helped and no incorrect info was given.

Tx tracytas


Great tips. I's sure that will help alot.

Please, lets continue this post. I miss my garden birds having moved from a house with lots of trees to a townhouse complex. There are many cats around, but despite that I put up a feeder in a safe place where cats can not reach. It gave me many moments of joy to watch the birds come to feed.

I work from a well treed converted old house in Bryanston. I was thinking of getting a nectar feeder to try to attact some of our more beautiful birds. Does anyone know how succesful it is to have a nectar feeder?

@MM... What do you put in your nectar feeder?

It can get tricky trying to attracting birds when you have cats and dogs running around in the garden. I try to make sure my feeder is high enough so that the dogs can't reach the birds.
I have bulldogs so if by any chance they catch a bird on the ground, the bird was either brain dead or deaf and blind and needed to be removed from nature.

Cats are a different prospect... any tips?

Our neighbour's cat which comes into the garden to use the toilet, has a bell on its collar which seems to work quite well. Alternatively half a housebrick also works

i found it extreamly difficult to get the sun birds interested, there is an artical in magazine, they said the feeder should blend in with the natural surroundings. some people put sugar in boiling water to help it disolve.
here is a mixture you can use :
Mix 1/4 c. sugar and 1 c. water in a cup or jar.
then put it in your feeder.
hope it helps.
cant guarantee it though

We add a food colourant (red, green and even blue) to this mixture and the birds just loves it.

water is a definite must! see it in KZN. Birds use the bathes much less though in summer time when water is elsewhere available.

Water a first,
Lots of trees helps,
No cats a definite.

& I have a live rabbit running around in the garden that seems to attract Kites, Brown eagle and a few others.

We know that the birds in any of the sanparks should not be fed, including those in the camps and at picnic spots - what is the general feeling about putting out bird feeders in your home garden to attract birds? (Seed, fruit and sugar water.)

There is mixed feelings out there Carolynn, as some would say that putting out feeders makes some species very lazy and takes away their natural instinct to forage for food themselves...

My personal opinion is that I think it is fine to put up feeders...

I have two feeders in my garden and I have a group of Red Headed Finches that visit my feeders on a daily basis and yet I still find them foraging on the lawns of my neighbours who doesn't have any feeders..

I think that by having an Indigenous garden helps a lot as well.

Hi carolynn,

I feed in winter but not in summer that way I feel I'm subsidizing their diet when times are tough without making them to lazy to find their own food. I have to agree with DD, an indigenous garden is the key element in inviting birds to your garden.

I do let the rabbit run in the garden now and then to get the Tawny to come sit.

lots of people have told me that you shouldn't feed your birds every day, some say that you should feed your birds every third day to avoid them becoming lazy, so i think bird feeders are a nice add on to your garden just don't abuse it. since i put up my bird feeders i have attracted many birds, some that i am unable to identify which is a nice challenge for me.