I occasionally buy groceries on line for home delivery. Recently I had a packet of cornflakes much bigger than I had intended and decided to use some for bird food. The birds won't even look at it. I put out a few cut up crusts with it on a bird table. The crusts all disappeared but not the cornflakes. I would have thought birds would relish cornflakes but they don't want to know. Can anyone suggest why?
i used to buy a mixed seed to feed the birds, which contained flakes similar to cornflakes, and they were always the last to get eaten. i now only buy sunflower hearts for them which get eaten almost as soon as i fill the feeders.
at this time of year there's plenty of natural food around for the birds - berries, apples, etc. - but during the depths of winter they will eventually eat cornflakes when there's nothing else.
Coldicote - some days aren't you glad you asked? I have no idea why the birds don't like the raw cornflakes but I have on occasion put out homemade flapjacks with the cornflakes as an ingredient - no doubt the fat and coconut etc makes it more palatable for the birds (FLAPjacks - no intended pun sorry)
Thanks everyone. No harm in having a less serious subject occasionally, but I still wonder what's 'wrong' with cornflakes that birds won't eat them. I would have thought a corn product would be attractive to them. Somehow I'm feeling a little less enthusiastic about breakfast. Regards, Coldi.
birds are very specific in their feeding habits. change the sort of stuff you put out and you'll change the sorts of birds you get in the garden. have a look at the rspb website if you're interested in attracting birds to your garden.
We get a lovely range of birds in our garden and have gone through a whole array of different feeds, fat balls, niger seed, sunflower hearts, peanuts, mixed feed. The only thing that gets eaten by the birds is the sunflower hearts - bloody squirrels eat the rest!