Vent: the $6 window feeder got more birds than my $45 cedar one, and I'm a little mad about it
So back in March I hung this nice cedar hopper feeder I built myself, stained it, mounted it on a pole out past the fence, and for 3 straight weeks all I got was one very confused house sparrow. Out of spite I zip tied a cheap $6 suction cup feeder to the kitchen window about 4 feet from where I sit with my coffee, and within 2 days I had chickadees, a downy woodpecker, and what I'm pretty sure is a pair of goldfinches fighting over it. My best guess is the birds around here just feel safer close to the house where the neighborhood cats can't sneak up, because that cedar feeder out in the open stays empty. Has anyone else had luck pulling birds in tight to the window, or did I just waste a Saturday building a fancy feeder nobody wants?
Two days for a downy woodpecker on a suction cup feeder is wild, those guys usually take weeks to warm up to anything new. The cats are the real answer here, my parents lost a whole feeder setup to a tomcat that learned to sit under the pole, so birds that survive in a neighborhood learn fast to stay near walls and windows. What's the window facing, a yard or a street, and do you get a lot of foot traffic past it?