Finally some birds on the suet feeder

At the Christmas bazaar put on by my daughter's school this year I purchased a beautiful wicker suet feeder to hang in the garden. It was hand-made by one of the mothers, who also made the suet ball inside it herself out of best organic ingredients. Nothing is too good for my garden birds (mostly tits) I thought, and rushed right out to hang it up.



On each trip to the garden I was then disappointed that the birds didn't seem to be accepting it, no matter where I hung it. I tried hanging it in the fruit trees, in the climbing roses and in the hazelnut, all places the birds like to hang out. But I ended up leaving it suspended from a fixture I use for hanging plants in the summer.

It was a beautiful sunny day today, 10 degrees C, the snow was all melted, and the wicker basket was almost empty! While putzing around on the other end of the garden, I noticed that there were several birds landing first on the metal arm, then perching on the basket and delving inside to reach the remaining suet. Every time I tried to approach to get a photo they flew away, so I had to take photos from pretty far away with the zoom on my very inadequate digital camera. I'm pretty sure the birds were all great tits (Parus major), the most common bird in my garden. Sorry about the quality.

So now I'm going to research how to make suet balls. And perhaps finally think about getting a better camera.