Were am I going wrong?

[jeff]

Today, I started to breed my own mealworms, I decided to give the sparrows a taste of things to come, I first put just a few worms onto a biscuit tin lid, I had no luck with the sparrows but all of a sudden a little black bird came along and hopped towards the lid, impatient that I am, I clicked the camera as he was on the way to the lid and I forgot to turn off the flash and it sent him flying off in a hurry (picture below)

On the instructions of the wife saying that the shinny lid may be frightening them I changed it to the green plastic one in the pictures, 2 hours later and I'm still sat there, camera in one hand and my video camera in the other waiting for any bird to come along and help them self's but no luck until a few sparrows landed and started to pick up the seed, I even had one jump onto the lid (picture) but even he didn't touch the meal worms

So can anyone tell me were or what am I doing wrong, I don't want ten million meal worms in my workshop if they don't want to eat them.

So any help with getting the birds to eat the worms will be so welcome.

[thud]

You need to be patient!

We have been feeding live mealies for some time now. Altogether we have two or three Robins; 2 Blackbirds and a couple of dozen young Starlings who are interested in them. None of the tits or finches were impressed at all! Oh, and the Magpie came right up to the house to get some - just once.

Our experience here is that none of the birds like to feed from anything on the ground that moves. Odd when they adapt quite easily to something hanging in a tree that swings all over the place when they land on it. We were watching a Blackbird with a (soft) whole pear the other day. He sunk his beak into it, and as he removed it the pear rolled towards him. He nearly jumped out of his skin.

I use small cheap ramekin (?) pots from Morrissons to feed mealies. Or a rabbit water pot, or some bright pink plastic trays that look like ashtrays - the Robins actually seem to prefer those - they are shallower, but the Blackbirds don't like them - perhaps they move under the blackies.

[jeff]

Thank you thud, we've been feeding the live mealies for a while now but the supply I have are starting to turn into aliens (I'm breeding them) so for the time being I have stopped feeding them the mealies incase I stick something bad out for them, They still have a large selection of food to choose from so they won't go hungry or miss out.

As soon as we can we will continue with the live feeding.

Love your picture of the blackbird, we have a couple that come here and its always the blackbird that goes for the pair the wife sticks out.

[Lisa]

Hi Jeff,

As Thud said, patience is the key here. Birds are well know to be very cautious of anything new in the garden and it can take some time before they have the confidence to try something new.

As live mealies will perish over time, if a first time attempt with live foods isn't successful, encouraging the birds with dried mealworms is a great way to give them the time to build up their confidence without having lots of live mealies going to waste in the process.

Once they are happily feeding on dried mealworms, you can then start mixing in live food and then changing over all together.

Also, try moving the feeder closer to cover initially, it may be that if it is out in the open they may feel too vunerable approaching it to explore the food on offer. Again, build their confidence Lslowly by moving the feeder closer to cover and if you then want to move it into a more open area so you can enjoy watching them feed every day, slowly move it and they should happily follow, just make sure that they aren't left vulnerable out in the open, if you can keep it where they have a clear view all around and a short route to cover they should be fine.

Hope this helps

[Nature__Lover]

:O LOVE your photograph john!!

[jeff]

Thank you Lisa
Were on stop with the live meal worms at the moment as the wife took over the breeding of them, she's at the beetle stage at the moment and is looking forward to any new arrivals lol.

She goes through them every day and quite often finds dead ones that she throws out to the birds who quite happily take them.

The Starlings just love all types of mealies dead or alive and often fight over who gets the most.

The bird table is reasonably close to the trees and bushes were they stay, so it may be a case for us once we start feeding again is to do as you suggest and introduce them slowly.