This starling took the opportunity to have a drink out of the planter trays that I have lying out on the deck (I have long since given up trying to grow anything on our wind and sun exposed deck). I’ve been filling the lids with water as a make-shift bird bath. Mostly I see sparrows and greenfinches having a drink as they are attracted to the bird seed we leave out for them. However, I recently left out some crumbled up vegetable fat block that I’d bought months ago to attract other birds. I’d hung the vegetable fat block up in a cage like feeder and was surprised to never see any birds go near it. It was left untouched the whole winter. I moved the feeder to our deck and watched how the sparrows instantly distrusted it. So the feeder was the problem. It does kind of look like a trap I suspect to any bird (at least to a sparrow).

So I crumbled up the fat block and waited to see what would happen. First came the black birds, then the sparrows had a go, and then we got the starlings. The starlings even came back the next day to have a good look around for the fat (I normally never see them). It was so successful, that I bought another fat block or ‘cake’ as they are marketed as. If you’re vegetarian and don’t want to handle suet but want to attract fat-loving birds, then the product I’m using might be just the thing – as it is free of animal products – it’s called Wild Bird Energy Cake.

See http://topflite.co.nz/ for more information about the energy cake.