[Kentishcrone]

I have a bird feeder in my back garden - pole, seed container, another container for fat ball, water. Small birds perch and use the seed container, larger birds, like pigeons, eat seed on the ground, after the small birds scatter it.

I've got a wild life friendly garden. On one side, winter honeysuckle (a bush), a David Austin rose and a mahonia. These are given minimum pruning. One strong rose stem arched parallel to the fence. Then the arching rose stem was shifted: it was lodged next to the bird feeder, right next to the seed container. My clever pigeons lounge along its length, no longer restricted to picking seed off the ground. Sometimes three or four will be on the rose stem, another in the cherry tree nearby. They co-exist very happily with the little birds, who are not afraid of them. When something new and strange appears, first a pigeon investigates. If it seems OK, the little birds fly down. I've got birds' nests in the honeysuckle bush, in two holly trees, in a couple of lilac bushes. I keep large plastic containers of seed and fat balls on a picnic table. The pigeons know what's in it and try, unsuccessfully, to break in.

I have a very busy back garden and enjoy watching from my kitchen window

 

[kelly528]

My parents looove backyard birding-- I think at one time we must have had six feeders in our tiny suburban backyard! Do you have a field guide of local birds? You can attract different birds with different feed. Another good trick is to add a water feature (even a silly plug-in fountain): the sound of trickling water will usually attract birds.

We get a few different species throughout the year, and the odd time we will get something really out of the ordinary, a stray from out of the region or a migrant of some sort.

 

[Kentishcrone]

I've got a bird book. Nothing even remotely exotic has ever appeared. We do get some migrants. I'd like to photograph them - years ago, I had a good camera with a telephoto lens. I might dig that out, buy some film.