Garden centres are packed full of tempting treats for garden birds. Peanuts, fat blocks, fat balls & lots of seed. Nyger seed – ideal to attract goldfinches by the charm! How lovely! Sometimes we’ve seen these birds, it would be special to encourage them to come to our garden & we would be helping them too.

As you can see we invested in a seed feeder, designed to dispense nyger seed. You will also see the birds that were attracted to this tasty delight!

Sparrows! I love this shot of a couple of them. I think it deserves a caption! The bird on the right seems to be a youngster, but during the time I watched a whole family descended on the feeder & appeared to be rewarded with seed.

I have since read that nyger seed is not quite so popular with goldfinches. Perhaps they have found there is now so much of the stuff in every garden they visit, that  they have lost the taste for it! In the past I’ve spotted goldfinches feeding from seed heads that had formed on our garden flowers. A Japanese anemone. Usually I cut down the stems each autumn, but one year I’d left them – much to the benefit of my visiting goldfinches.

It was also the perfect excuse to cut down my autumn gardening tasks! I now leave the seed heads to form, just in case a passing goldfinch might feel peckish & stop by! As for the sparrows – they are welcome to enjoy any remaining seed they can manage!