RSPB Suet feeder and guardian plus suet logs

3.0 out of 5

16

I was very disappointed with this cumbersome feeder. It is awkward to take apart but most importantly, two logs will not fit into the feeder! The pictures are misleading.

Had to free a sparrow which had its leg caught between the base an the grid.

Looks great and good quality product. HOWEVER, I should have read the other reviews. Jackdaws and magpies finding it very easy to get their heads in. Starlings have also worked it out.

The "protection" is a joke. The crows empty it in 30 minutes - and the lesser species get nothing!
Only buy if you only like Crows!

Unfortunately magpies, jackdaws etc can still access the suet. The cage needs to be wider so increases gap between outer and inner feeder. You are as well hanging without outer cage.

I bought this feeder a few years ago, and while it has been successful at attracting the birds, the quality has not been great. A struct across the top fell off and I had to replace it with a piece of wire to stop the squirrels being able to reach in too easily. The paint on the sloping base has flaked badly, leaving exposed rusty metal. The plastic fixing screw on the base broke, making taking apart and reassembling for cleaning fiddly. Apart from that, it is great at holding a large number of fat balls, and making it difficult for most of the large birds and squirrels to get at them.

The tits and other small birds love the suet balls. Unfortunately large birds especially magpies can also peck through the guards and the suet balls are quickly eaten by them. A larger guard would be required to avoid the larger birds reaching in.

I bought this fatball guardian to prevent large birds such as jackdaws and magpies from getting to the fat balls. In fact I feel misled by your description which strongly suggests that this is the case. Having paid £27.47 (plus postage) for the guardian I did expect it to work! However I have seen magpies and jackdaws get their heads through the outer cage and then poke their beaks through the inner cage and eat the fat balls with ease. I really think the item needs redesigning and the description modified to state that it does NOT stop some bigger birds from getting the food bought for smaller birds.

Long-tailed tits and blue tits used it after only 30 minutes, followed closely by sparrows. Holds a reasonable amount of food too.

Bought to replace a cheap suet dispenser & guardian, which our growing colony of sparrows have been using daily for 2 years. It was flaking (paint) and rusting badly so this RSPB unit looked like the perfect, long lasting replacement. Whilst I cannot fault the obvious quality of this unit, the sparrows won't use it. Like the photo in the catalogue they just hang on the guardian looking in, and have instead gone into the front garden to rob the feeders there! They usually adapt within hours to new feeders, so clearly this one is not at all to their liking. The sloping 'floor' means they cannot sit on it and peck away like they do inside the old feeder, and this is the major fault - it acts as a deterrent! Feeder has large gaps so diminishing balls will fall to the ground, where my dogs will eat them. I'm reinstating my rusting original until I can source a quality replacement that works. Conclusion: poor design. Very disappointed and will be returning for refund as it is absolutely useless for my sparrows.

Rooks and jackdaws had been clearing. half a dozen fat balls early each morning leaving nothing for the tits. I put this new feeder out with 3 fat balls and they were still there next morning and within a couple of hours the braver blue tits have begun to visit, followed by a long tail tit. Provided the corvids don’t work out a solution this is a winning design.

I bought this suet feeder with guardian in the hopes of keeping the starlings off the suet balls (the sparrows used to love the buggy suet balls... until the starlings worked out how to hang off the fat-ball feeder, and now they finish off 6 suet balls in a day and don't let any of the other birds get a look-in!). There's plenty of food for the starlings in my other feeders, so I wanted to provide something the smaller birds couldn't be bullied off by the starling gangs. Unfortunately so far the only birds that have used the feeder are the starlings!

Like a previous reviewer, I found a juvenile starling trapped in the guardian this morning. Luckily it hadn't been stuck there too long and I was able to free it without too much trouble, but it was clearly quite distressed. The adults are bright enough to figure out how to get to the suet cake by hanging on the side and tipping it over until they can reach it, but the juvenile was small enough to get part-way inside and inexperienced enough to get wedged in.

The feeder and guardian seem very well-made (although it was much larger than I was expecting!) but given that I only bought it to keep off starlings and it doesn't do that, I can't in all honesty recommend it.

It took one of our local squirrels just 1 minute to work out how to access the food. The problem is that the feeder relies on weight and gravity for the junction between the outer cage and the tray at the bottom of the inner feeder to stay in place. When the squirrel crawls on the side of the outer cage this alters the balance and the outer cage slides to one side of the tray (whichever way up the tray is fitted).
This results in the inner feeder cage being close enough to the protective cage for the squirrel to eat from it at leisure. The solution is a set of spring clips (like the clips used to keep papers on a note pad board) to secure the outer cage to the tray. They take only seconds to place and remove and are used on similar feeders supplied in garden centres. Why are they not supplied with the RSPB feeder?

Unlike the other review I am very happy with this feeder, I fill it up with fat balls and where the starlings demolished them in a couple of days they now last. I have seen blue tits, sparrows, robin all enjoy their food in peace, the starlings of course still have some but they have to work for it and not be so greedy.

I bought this as gift for my mother whose garden is frequented by many jackdaws.
However, she'll not use it. This is because on a number of occasions; exhausted, suffering starlings, trapped within the guardian have needed freeing.

This feeder does not meet expectations, even if it were a safe execution of concept, I wouldn't see this product as representing value for money. Barely used, it already appears fatigued with the strain of holding the two included suet cakes in winter weather.

Obviously the only recommendation I can give is to avoid the product. Given its only success is in deterring the jackdaws as much as it deters all smaller birds with exception of misadventuring starlings.

RSPB response - Thanks for your review. Sorry to hear you were unhappy with the product. We have not heard of starlings becoming trapped in this feeder before, they are very intelligent birds so this sort of occurrence in any feeder or feeder with a guardian is most unusual. These feeders are made to be very strong, and it shouldn't be showing any signs of fatigue just from holding the suet cakes, please get in touch so that we can look into getting the item returned to us for a quality assessment. Many thanks for letting us know.

About a month ago I bought this feeder having read in your catalogue "rest assured that the small birds, not bigger ones or adult squirrels will get the best deal...." great! Just what I wanted - something on which only tits, robins and finches could have the monopoly. Now, don't get me wrong, I will still feed the crows, jackdaws, magpies and "my boys" (the starlings), they're all part of life's rich tapestry and great fun to watch; but fair play, level field and all that. After a month there is still haif the bird cake left-good on the expenses sheet- and the only birds that can use it are "the boys". Entertaining though it is to see their necks stretch out like elastic bands, sticking those bills through both sets of metal; it's not quite what I had in mind. So can someone please please come up with a solution to the of how to give the smaller shy birds a fair deal!. Apart from the fact I feel your product description was misleading if you want a squirrel -crow proof- or a starlings this way feeder this is robust enough to do the job!