You might be better having a couple of feeders with single seed varieties rather than mixed feed. Less will be discarded and wasted.
I'd thought about that, but was wary of buying a single feed that they either don't like, or only attracts a limited number of species.
The feeders (mixed and a peanut feeder), hang in a rose arch outside my conservatory window - so when I'm at the computer or practicing my sax, I can watch 'my' birds. I have another peanut feeder and a flat block elsewhere in the garden. The first year I did it the 'discarded' seed fell on the lawn underneath and the ground-feeding birds (blackbirds, doves, pigeons, robins) paddled the grass to death. Last year I put a large board across the arch, a couple of feet underneath the feeders, and now the ground feeders patrol the board and clean up - with minimal spillage onto the grass, which now survives the winter.
As I sit here, there's a male sparrow chucking seeds out of the feeder as fast as he can, and a male blackbird underneath with discarded seed bouncing off him as fast as he can pick it up.
May have to introduce a registration system though, to encourage loyalty amongst my visitors..... We are on the edge of open farmland though with loads of hedges and trees for them to scavenge in anyway.
