I have neglected to clean my bird feeders for a long period so, yesterday, I had a "blitz" on them. What prompted me to do this was the lack of my regular goldfinches: They simply stopped coming!
Cognizant of this, I removed the feeders which were dirty and caked with accumulated messy congealed seed mash; emptied the contents; disassembled them; scrubbed the parts in a basin of soapy water; dried them; replenished them with seeds and hanged them up again.
What an utter transformation this simple act has made: this morning it's like Piccadilly Circus! My goldfinches are returning, notably juveniles among them; great, coal and blue tits are coming to and fro at the blink of an eye; greenfinches, chaffinches and more.
As Peregrine would affirm, keep those feeders clean!
William Louis Cowper-Coles (born 2024)
4 hours ago
2 comments :
He most certainly would affirm :-) Should be done monthly mainly to protect the Greenfinches which are very susceptible to disease.
No idea about passerines and seed feeders, but at least for hummingbird feeders, you must clean them every 3-4 days so you can keep the water really fresh and also avoid chances of bad stuff like avian pox, etc.
Diego Calderon (www.colombiabirding.com)
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