Why no birds are coming to your feeder

An empty feeder is the most common complaint in backyard bird feeding, and the most common response to it — buying a different feeder — is almost always the wrong one. Work through these in order. Most cases are solved by the first three.

1. It has not been long enough

Birds find food socially, by watching each other. In a yard with no feeding history nothing happens until the first individual finds you, and that can take days or several weeks.

The test: has the feeder been in the same place, untouched, for two full weeks? If not, that is your answer, and the worst thing you can do is move it, because that restarts the clock. More in how to attract birds to a new feeder.

2. The seed is stale

Seed is a food product. It goes rancid, absorbs damp and loses the oils that make it worth eating. This is the single most common cause of a feeder that used to be busy going quiet, and it is especially true of nyjer, which has the lowest fat content of the common seeds and dries out fastest.

The test: empty a handful into your hand. Fresh seed smells of almost nothing and looks slightly glossy. Stale seed smells sour or musty and looks dull. If in doubt, throw it out and refill from a fresh bag — storage rules here.

3. There is better food available

A good mast year — acorns, beech nuts, berries — makes your feeder genuinely uninteresting. This is seasonal, it is not your fault, and it resolves on its own when the natural supply runs down. Autumn is when it bites hardest.

The test: is the yard full of birds that are ignoring the feeder? Then the birds are there and the food is not needed. Keep the seed fresh and wait.

4. A hawk is working your yard

A sharp-shinned or Cooper's hawk that has learned your feeder is a reliable hunting spot will empty it of small birds in a way nothing else does. The silence is abrupt and total.

The test: did the birds vanish all at once rather than tail off? Look for a hawk sitting quietly nearby. The fix is to take the feeders down for a few days to break the pattern, and to make sure there is cover about ten feet away when you put them back.

5. The feeder is dirty

Birds avoid moldy seed and grimy feeders, and a feeder that has not been cleaned in a season is both. Project FeederWatch recommends cleaning every week or two, more often in heavy use or wet weather, disinfecting by soaking cleaned parts for ten minutes in one part bleach to nine parts water.

The test: when did you last strip it down? If the answer is a shrug, that is the problem. Method here.

6. The placement is wrong

Birds will not feed in the open with nowhere to escape to, and they will not feed somewhere a cat can wait. Project FeederWatch suggests about ten feet from cover as the compromise between escape routes and squirrel jumping distance.

The test: is the feeder marooned in the middle of a lawn with no shrub within twenty feet? Or tucked so deep into a hedge that it cannot be seen from the air? Both fail. See the placement guide.

The situation-specific versions

• No birds at a new suet feeder: woodpeckers can take a week or two to find suet, and upside-down cages take longer still. Give it a fortnight.
• No birds at a window feeder: normal, and slower on upper floors. See window feeders.
• No finches at a nyjer feeder: stale seed, nearly every time. Detail here.
• Quiet in winter: check the ports are not iced or snow-blocked, and that the perches are clear.

What not to do

1. Do not move the feeder repeatedly. Every move restarts the discovery clock.
2. Do not buy a different feeder before checking the seed.
3. Do not add more feeders. An empty yard with three feeders is still empty.
4. Do not scatter large amounts of seed on the ground to speed it up. That brings rodents, not birds — see here.