Covered platform feeders are recommended because they protect the food from rain or snow. Many types of hanging feeders, including tube feeders and bowl feeders, are also available. Hanging feeders, especially those with small perches, attract more of the smaller songbirds and will be used less frequently by larger birds, like cardinals and jays, that rarely feed on swaying feeders. Regardless of the type of seed or mix used, feeders should be cleaned regularly with hot water and detergent. All wet or moldy food should be removed immediately from feeders and from the area near the feeder.
Moldy food can poison the birds.
Roofed Platform Feeder Suet Feeder Pine Cone Feeder Suet Feeders. Many species of birds not attracted to seed feeders will be drawn to suet feeders. Suet, a hard type of beef fat which can be obtained from your butcher, provides birds with a high-energy winter food. Suet can be dispensed in cages, baskets, bags, logs, pine cones, and other imaginative dispensers and will attract birds that normally eat insects. Thrashers, flickers, woodpeckers, thrushes, kinglets, wrens, catbirds, orioles, juncos, and sparrows are a few of the many birds found locally that will feed regularly at suet feeders.