How Long Does It Take Birds to Find a Bird Feeder? Tips for Bird Watchers

If you're just now getting into the hobby known as "birding," you likely purchased a bird feeder to attract birds to your home. As you do your best to clean your birdfeeder and keep it free of mold, you may wonder when birds will start visiting after installing it.

Thankfully, experts have plenty of tips to share to attract birds and keep feeders free of unwanted guests.

For amateur and veteran birders alike, experiencing a down period with few birds coming to your feeder can be discouraging. Keep reading below to learn some tips about how to attract birds to your feeder over time.

According to Lyric Wild Bird Food, it may take as little as a few hours — or as long as several days or weeks before your bird feeder attracts birds. As Wild Birds Unlimited notes, it might even take months before your feeder receives its first round of visitors.

Your season and location can be two prominent reasons why birds haven't yet visited your yard.

If you're feeling demoralized by a long wait time for visitors to your bird feeder, try not to feel too discouraged. In fact, according to Wild Birds Unlimited, it may not even be an issue with your bird seed or bird feeder. Rather, natural predators or competitors like squirrels, domestic cats, and larger birds of prey may prevent your intended birds from visiting.

How, then, can birders attract birds to their feeders?

According to the Chicago Botanic Garden, there are many ways in which amateur birders can make their bird feeders more attractive to birds. To start, you should ensure that your feeder is as full as possible to ensure that hungry birds have a visible cue that food is available.

Another tip from the Chicago Botanic Garden is to surround your feeder with native plants. A more accommodating environment will attract regional birds and signify that your home is a natural area to feed.

This next tip goes hand-in-hand with the native plants idea: choose the right bird seed for your feeder. While some birds migrate to large areas of the country, it is best to select a seed that is appropriate for your particular geography.

According to Better Homes & Gardens, you should also plan to buy a variety of bird feeder types to see if that attracts a larger variety of birds — which also has the added benefits of encouraging bird safety and keeping unwanted visitors at bay.

"Having feeders that don't have any strange spots where birds could get their head stuck or their whole body stuck is important," Emma Greig, who serves as the manager of Project FeederWatch at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, tells Better Homes & Gardens.

Finally, just as you deliberately clean and sanitize the bird feeder, you might also consider adding a birdbath or other water source that you clean frequently. Birds enjoy bathing and consuming water, and this might be the cherry on top that attracts birds to your feeder.

It is not likely that birds can smell the bird food in feeders from a distance. As Lyric Wild Bird Food notes, birds will almost always locate food with their expert sense of sight, rather than by smell.

According to Birds & Blooms, birds have varying degrees of abilities to utilize their sense of smell to their advantage. Nevertheless, birds can communicate with one another through their sense of smell.