Why have the birds stopped coming to my feeder?

Feeders going quiet is one of the most common questions people ask about garden birds, and it is almost always a change in the wider world rather than a problem with your garden. Working through the possibilities in order settles it quickly.

Step by step

1. Check the time of year first.Late summer and autumn are the reliable answer. Natural food — seeds, berries, insects and a large crop of fruit — is at its most abundant, and birds prefer it. Add the annual moult, when many species become secretive and reluctant to fly, and gardens can go almost silent in August and September. It returns as autumn goes on.
2. Look for a sparrowhawk.A sparrowhawk hunting a garden empties a feeding station within seconds and keeps it empty for hours or days. Signs are a scatter of plucked feathers on the lawn, and the birds all vanishing at once rather than dwindling. Moving the feeder closer to dense cover gives small birds an escape route.
3. Check the food itself.Damp, clumped, mouldy or stale seed is refused. Peanuts go rancid. Fat products go off in warm weather. Empty the feeder, wash it, dry it and refill with fresh food from a bag that has been kept dry and sealed.
4. Check whether you changed brands.A switch to a cheaper mix full of wheat and split peas is a very common cause. Birds pick out what they want and abandon the rest. Go back to sunflower hearts and see if they return.
5. Check the feeder is clean.Birds avoid mouldy, dirty feeders, and a dirty feeder is also a disease risk. Scrub it out and refill.
6. Look for a new cat.A cat that has started patrolling the garden or sitting near the feeder will clear it. Move the feeder to an open position around two metres from cover, raise it, and put a prickly barrier around the base of the pole.
7. Look for changes nearby.A hedge cut down, a tree felled, a fence replaced, an extension being built, scaffolding, a new bird feeder two gardens away, or a neighbour who has started feeding more generously than you. Birds move to wherever the combination of food and cover is best.
8. Check for signs of disease.If you have recently seen fluffed-up, lethargic birds with matted plumage around the beak, the flock may have dispersed because of illness. Take the feeders down, clean thoroughly and leave them off for two to four weeks, and report sightings to Garden Wildlife Health.
9. Consider rats and squirrels.Rats visiting at night and squirrels dominating by day both discourage small birds. Deal with spilled seed on the ground and use a caged or squirrel-proof feeder.
10. Keep feeding through it.The most common mistake is to stop because nothing is coming. Birds check known food sources on a circuit, and a feeder that is intermittently empty gets dropped from that circuit. Keep a small amount of fresh food out and they find it again.
11. Be patient about the timescale.Coming back after a sparrowhawk takes days. Coming back after the autumn glut takes weeks. Coming back after a disease break takes a month. None of it is unusual.

Tips

• Keep a rough note of what you see week by week. It turns a worrying absence into an obvious annual pattern within a year.
• Berrying shrubs, seedheads left standing and an untidy corner do more for birds than a feeder, and they are what makes birds stay rather than visit.
• Cold snaps bring birds back to feeders immediately. A hard frost after a quiet autumn usually produces the busiest week of the year.
• If you are going away, ask a neighbour to top up rather than leaving a huge amount out, which goes damp and mouldy.

Common mistakes

• Taking the feeder down because nothing is using it — Birds work a circuit of reliable sources. An unreliable feeder is dropped, and the recovery takes far longer than the quiet period would have.
• Filling a feeder to the top and leaving it for weeks — The seed at the bottom goes damp and mouldy and birds refuse the whole feeder. Fill less, more often.
• Assuming a sparrowhawk is a problem to be solved — It is a bird of prey doing what it does, and it is protected. A healthy garden bird population supports one. Give small birds cover to escape into rather than trying to deter it.

If it doesn't work

Questions people ask