Garden Wildlife UK

On Friday I ordered some of these Mealworm and Insect Fat Feast blocks from Twootz - 48 for £29.99 - they're on offer at this price until 9am Friday 20 June:

http://www.twootz.com/product/Mealworm- ... -Fat-Feast

Ordered 25kg sunflower hearts - £24.99 and some split peanuts from Twootz late last Sunday night/Monday morning 30th June.

Enquired about them on Friday - apparently their courier, Yodel, had experienced some downtime with their tracking system, which wasn't back to full capacity until late Wednesday afternoon.

No sunflower hearts in Wilkinson yesterday so OH went to Woodlands Nursery & Garden Centre this morning and bought a small bag Dawn Chorus ones 1.75kg - £8.99 The 1kg bags were £5 something.

My order has appeared on the tracking system now and should be delivered by tomorrow but probably today as it says that's it's out for delivery.

Yodel also have a header across the top of their tracking page saying that some deliveries could be delayed due to road closures for the Tour de France.

Well at least the birds have got something this morning

Edit 14.14 - Delivery arrived a few minutes ago

I ordered some sunflower seeds from those people mentioned previously http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Birds-/20734/ ... ife_direct
I went for next day delivery as I'm a bit low and didn't want to wait until next week.

My missing suet pellets was solved the day before I received a replacement pack off Maltbys (which did take 2 weeks and a few "where's my stuff" emails to be sent).

I'd been using the mealies quite rapidly due to thinking I had loads, I was decanting some more into a household container, when something clogged the bag opening. Yes, it was the pellets They'd double packed the suet pellets, then put them in a massive bag and loosely poured the mealworms in it. I'd not opened the big bag fully and had a good squeeze to check if it was in there.

I emailed Maltbys explaining and telling them to have a word with their packing staff and they said I could have the extra pellets free of charge. Which is great (eventual) customer service.

Twootz at it again !! 25kg Original seed mix = £14.99, free P & P. Offer open until 29/7.

I was in my local Lidl the other day and while awaiting checkout I happened to look at the little bags of nuts and stuff on offer. Oh, I thought those seeds look very much like sunflower hearts and with closer scrutiny that is exactly what they were. The bargain price was 99p for 200grams or a fiver per kilo. When you can buy a 25kilo bag for £24 it is easy to see where the profits are made

I usually buy Suet To Go berry suet pellets but couldn't find any this time in the quantity and price I would prefer so bought these. I have seen them before and been put off by the black bits in them. Obviously the photo they put up didn't look like these.
Well they really smell .... like old gym shoes that have been stored in a bag the Suet To Go ones smell like suet and all the other suet products - slightly sweet.

So does anyone know what the black bits are? I wondered if they are grinding up the world's abandoned plimsolls and recycling them The birds seem to be eating some of them although there are some of the old ones out there too.

They don't seem as water resistant as the Suet To Go ones either.

I would presume nuthatch that the bits are fruit of some kind.

From the plimsoll tree?

I didn't think of that, Willpar

Are there any clues on the packaging?
My main concern is whether the birds will eat them. If they do who cares what the black bits are

Some suet pellets have "insects" in, don't they ?? Now precisely what kind is never actually specified