I have set up a seed bell and a suet cake on the fire escape. Just strapped them there with rubber bands. The birds took a while to find the food, but they appreciated it during the last fierce snow of spring, (we hope the last, anyway!) last week.
I thought I might get pigeons or seagulls. That would have been exciting. But what has come are what my grandmother called 'little brown birds.' Meaning purple finches, mostly. Chickadees too, and grackles.
My only other experience with bird feeders was at home, years ago. We got jays there, and cat-birds, and what my gramma called 'cardigan birds.' (My dad said you could tell those by the buttons down the front!)
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The grackles are so pretty, black with shining purple and blue in it, and a fancy pattern of speckles. And they travel in huge groups, thousands. Sometimes you will see a tree, and it looks perfectly ordinary, and then as you get closer it is all in motion, and it was full of birds and you didn't even know, and they just lift away and what you thought was tree was mostly birds after all. I love when that happens. It happens a lot with grackles.
Grackles eat bugs I think, they seem to like the suet ok.