Wagner’s 62051 Nyjer Seed Wild Bird Food, 5-Pound Bag

Our small birds like it – finches & sparrows.
I mix this with bird seed for yard feeders.This helps attract finches, sparrows and other small birds that may not want larger seeds.

House Finches like it
Once I hung the feeder the pretty House Finches went right for it. I now have a small “finch farm” with pretty, friendly, pleasantly churping birds.Buy a finch feeder or sock. I repurposed a regular bird feeder to dispense this fine-consistancy seed. The problem with this is that the fine seed flows too fast through the large ports on the feeder. I had to shrink the ports with duct tape. The Finches scatter the black seed and make a mess on my balcony. So I attached an aluminium pie plate to the underside of the feeder to catch some of the waste.The finches divide their time between the finch feeder and the sunflower-filled Cardinal feeder. They pretty much ignore the third “finch food” mix.I am however disappointed with the absence of Gold Finches. I know that they exist in my area, but just not at my feeders. I did spot one the first year but none since. I tried introducing Echinacea plants which are said to attract Gold Finches. But in reality GFs are attracted to Echinacea seeds. As fall approached I discovered that my plants were sterile hybrids that do not produce seeds.The strange spelling of the seed is to protect racial sensibilities – they are native to the African country of Niger.

Birds love it
I specifically bought safflower and nyjer seeds because we are inundated with starlings for the first time. They have always been in my neighborhood by the hundreds every afternoon around 4 but they land on the wires or a yard, stay there chattering for 5 or 10 minutes, and then leave. I had been using a Lyric Songbird no-mess blend in my window feeders but the starlings descended one day and stripped the feeders clean in minutes. I had 14 of them all at once on each of two 4″ x 12″ attachable window feeders, fighting with each other for the food. It was like a cartoon. They were stuffed inside, flipping the seed out, on the top, hanging on the perch on the front. If I wasn’t so mad I would have been LOL. Actually I was. But I was ripping mad too. I was knocking at the window until I thought I was going to break it. Believe me. They didn’t give a hoot. Knock away, sucker. We’ve got your food. Best in the neighborhood. Hahaha. The same thing happened the next day. I left the feeders empty for over a week and then replaced the songbird mix with half nyjer/half safflower seeds with a few peanuts in their shells mixed in. Everything was great for about 10 days. The cardinals, purple finches, sparrows, chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, bluejays all took a day or so to get used to the new offering and then seemed to love it. I was willing to put up with having to sweep up the seed mess on the walkway under the window if it meant the new mix kept the starlings at bay. It did until 2 days ago. Now the feeders are stripped again, there’s seed and poop all over the feeders, the side of my house, and under the window. It was extraordinarily cold here the past two days (-10 with 35 mph winds) and I’m wondering if that’s why the starlings are eating food they allegedly hate. I will try one more time and then I’ll have to stop feeding the birds I love if the starlings come back. I hate to do it but I can’t keep up with the cost and mess caused by the hordes of starlings. I’ll post this on the safflower seed site as well so that other buyers will be aware that starlings will eat it. UPDATE: it’s been a few weeks since the frigid temps we had on the weekend that the starlings stripped the feeders. Since those two days I have only seen one starling once at the feeders. The nyjer/safflower/peanuts in shell mix is definitely keeping the starlings at bay and the rest of the birds happy. The starlings must’ve been starving on the frigidly cold days and would have eaten anything for energy. I’m glad I could oblige, I suppose! It’s a real mess under the feeders and I have to sweep every day or two to keep the seed from tracking into the house but it is fun to watch the birds fly in and enjoy themselves at the window feeders.

Birds like
Good value