Songbird Essentials 30" SeedHoop Seed Catcher & Platform Feeder

Works great so far! Hung it under our feeder and adjusted each of the toggles on the lines to hang it flat. Tossed a small handful of seed in the hoop to weigh it down and catch the birds’ attention. They were suspicious at first, but were happily interacting with the feeder the next day.The goal was to keep the seed off the ground, to prevent attracting and feeding rats in the yard (it was an issue). Seems to be doing the trick. The hoop has caught the seed, nuts, and millet shells really well. The squirrels briefly assessed the situation before they gave up.In addition, the small birds that usually prefer to feed on the ground are now doing so in the hoop, which is a much safer distance from roving neighborhood cats. So far, the mesh has held up to frequent small bird use (chickadees, house finches, etc). Saw a towhee sitting in it the other day, but as it’s rigged right now, anything robin-sized or larger is no longer interacting with the feeder. May need a separate platform feeder for those guys.The hoop is lightweight and will sway in light wind a bit, but the birds don’t seem to care and will ride it out. The raised edges of the hoop prevent the seed from trickling over the side. Haven’t seen how much it sways in moderate wind yet, but the instructions that came with it suggested taking it down on windy days.Cleaning it has been easy so far (just empty it over a garbage or compost bin), but it has also been dry. Bought this at the beginning of the summer season and have not seen how it does in the rain. Will likely need to very gently hose it off upside-down every couple of weeks to clean it in the rainy season.The only other thing is that it comes coiled in a bag. There is a warning on the outside of the bag that the hoop is essentially spring-loaded. It will expand to 3x the size of the bag it came in, so to keep from “air bagging” yourself in the face (like I did, despite the warning), grip all the turns of the coiled hoop with one hand, extend your arm out to the side, and turn your face away before you let it expand. It opens FAST.

We were tired of the mountain of seed (ok, not exactly a mountain but a lot) building up on the ground under the feeder. The ground underneath had lost all of its grass and what grew there were the shoots of the germinated sunflower seeds. Thus our reason for looking for something to hang below the feeder to catch the fallen seeds.We picked this model since it offered several features we were looking for and seemed to be the most practical and promising to actually work. We were right. Now we may find one or two sunflower sprouts in the grass every week or two. That's a far improvement over what seemed like a dozen or more new ones popping up every day. Now we have been able to resod the area below the feeder and it has filled in quite well.One advantage we had not thought about was the greatly reduced seed waste. It seems that the birds will drop a good percentage of what they actually pick out of the feeder and eat. Thus the feeder was needing filling every few days. The feeder is a larger "squirrel resistant" type and with three segments inside the housing it holds a fairly large amount of seed for a hanging feeder. Now we see that what seed drops lands on the surface of the catcher and birds will focus on that seed thus insuring that a higher percentage of the seed is actually consumed by birds and not lost on the ground below. Now the times between filling are much longer than before.I have it pulled up fairly tight below the bottom rim of the feeder thus the larger bird such as doves though they will weight it down a little, it does not tilt much and stays mostly level even with their weight. It's rather common to see three or four birds at a time simply feeding from the wire screen surface of the feeder.As for squirrels, that's always going to be a bit of a problem but the few times one has actually had the courage to drop down onto the catcher from the branch above, it is not to their liking and if we don't get there in time to chase them off, they tend to soon leave on their own and no damage has been done to the screen material. We have a squirrel guard hanging above the feeder and that discourages the squirrels to a great degree.The material has held up well in the almost a year we have had it up. We have found no tears in either the screen or the outer "wall" onto which the tether lines are attached. How many years it can be expected to last is only a guess and it will probably be as dependent upon the climate it is used in as anything else. Since it is sewn well and the material looks to be substantial, I think at least a few years. Our feeder is in operation all year and in all weather and I do believe it will last. It certainly has met its requirements.

My 2 little dogs were eating the seeds that were greatly scattered on the ground below this feeder, this works perfectly to control that! Birds, squirrels nd chippies like to jump onto it and eat the scatter too! When it’s windy I’ll have to find a way to anchor to grown as it causes motion on the camera feed! I did zip tie the string by the pole so that helps some. So far it’s been a great purchase.

The media could not be loaded. As another reviewer noted, when this hangs from hooks the wind will blow it all over the place. I have had mine for a week and the past 3 days we have had wind gusts up to 30mph. I had to take it down because it just was getting tangled in the feeder. My feeder is a 3-tube finch feeder, so perhaps this would work better with another kind of feeder that would allow it to hang better;or installed on a pole.I tried hanging it 2 ways. The first way I hung the clips from the top of the feeder. in high winds it was least stable this way and definitely got tangled in the feeder.The second way I hung it from the bottom of the feeder. It still moved around a lot in high winds, but at least it did not get tangled in the feeder. However, the left over string did get blown over the edge of the feeder.As the same reviewer pointed out, the hoop comes with a slight warp. I am not sure that is a deal-breaker; the warp might go away with time.I have not seen any birds land on the hoop to feed so I can not attest to whether or not the bird beaks and talons would tear the mesh. But the mesh does catch the small Nyjer, Flax, Millet, seeds and Sunflower Hearts that fill the finch feeder. They stick to the mesh and even a strong wind does not seem to blow them away.It has caught a lot of seed so I feel it was a good investment. But it does not work well in high winds. Also, I wish it had additional rings to keep the left-over string tidy.

We had to dig a huge lump of matted and growing seed from under the feeders. These seed catchers prevent most of the dropped seed from getting into the lawn. Birds were a bit suspicious of them at first but are now returning to feed. Ordered one and was so pleased l ordered a 2nd.

Excellent! When the seed falls onto the catcher, the birds eat those seeds as well so the seed catcher stays clean. I was worried the squirrels would tear the netting when they try to jump on but the netting is strong enough and is still in perfect shape.

Living in the country we get quite a number of rats and, although I don't want to kill them I don't want to encourage them either, so was looking for something that would catch the falling seeds from the feeding station onto something that the gound feeding birds would use.. This product does exactly that and prevents the seeds from landing onto the lawn. It came beautifully packaged in a reusable bag, is very easy to assemble and can be adjusted to exactly the desired height. I can definitely recommend this product.

In one very short sentence, ease of use. It’s awesome.

I had looked for many different ways of catching the seeds from going on the lawn but in the end i had to just bite the bullet and purchase one of these. This is a good quality item and the birds love being on the platform for the dropped seeds. I would recommend this item if you are looking to keep the garden tidy and also have a platform for the birds to enjoy. The goldfinches that come to the garden love it. I am buying one a year and the netting does come away at the edges, just keep that in mind.