Henry Bell Essential Ground Feeder

Henry Bell Essential Ground Feeder

Not every garden bird uses a hanging feeder. Blackbirds, dunnocks, robins, chaffinches and house sparrows feed at or near the ground by preference, and a ground feeder simply gives them somewhere clean and dry to do it instead of picking through wet grass under the seed feeder.

This is the mesh tray from Henry Bell's Essential range, raised on short legs so that rain drains through rather than pooling under the seed, and so the food sits off wet soil. It takes any of the Henry Bell seed mixes, sunflower hearts, dried mealworms or Calciworms.

Performance & Benefits

• Gives ground-feeding species a dry, defined place to feed rather than the lawn.
• Open mesh lets rainwater drain straight through, so seed does not sit in a puddle.
• Raised on legs, which keeps food off wet soil and makes the tray easier to lift and rinse.
• Open on all sides, so several birds can feed at once and none is cornered.
• Takes seed mixes, sunflower hearts, dried mealworms and Calciworms equally well.
• Useful in hard frost and in dry summers, when natural ground foraging is hardest.

Suitable For

• Robins, dunnocks, blackbirds, chaffinches and house sparrows.
• Lawns, patios and any flat, open piece of ground.
• Gardens where the hanging feeders are busy and smaller birds are being crowded out.
• Feeding Henry Bell seed mixes, sunflower hearts, mealworms or Calciworms.
• Not the right feeder for whole peanuts, and not the one to use where cats patrol — the Henry Bell Heritage Ground Feeder has a cage over the tray for that situation.

How to Use

• Stand it on a flat, open patch of ground with a clear view around it, well away from cover a cat could spring from.
• Fill with a shallow layer of seed, hearts or dried insects — enough for a day rather than a week.
• Lift and empty any uneaten food that has got wet, then rinse the mesh and let it dry.
• Clean weekly in warm water with a bird-safe hygiene product; ground feeders concentrate droppings more than hanging feeders do.
• Move it a metre or two every few weeks so droppings do not build up in one spot.

Specification

• Open wire mesh tray on legs, in the grey finish used across the Henry Bell Essential range.
• Suitable for seed mixes, sunflower hearts, dried mealworms and Calciworms.
• Henry Bell do not list the Essential Ground Feeder on their own website, and publish no dimensions, mesh gauge, tray depth or weight for it. Figures quoted on retail listings have no manufacturer source, so none is repeated here.
• The rest of the Essential range is 20cm high with an easy-opening lid and a removable angled base; those figures describe the tube feeders, not this tray.

Care & Caution

• Do not offer whole peanuts in a ground feeder. Adult birds carry them to nestlings whole, and a chick can choke. Peanuts belong in a mesh peanut feeder that forces birds to take crumbs.
• Ground feeding puts birds within reach of cats. Site the tray in the open, several metres from any bush, wall or fence a cat can use as cover.
• Clear up spilled food each evening so the tray does not draw rats and mice overnight.
• Take the tray in or empty it if food has gone mouldy; mouldy feed causes respiratory disease in garden birds.