Hello, Just found this forum & thought I would pass along one of those "why didn't I think of this before ideas". Couple of weeks ago I had to spread some traction sand in the driveway. With all the snow it is hard for the birds to find any grit. Watching them feast on the traction sand, I thought why not -- one stop shopping, so placed some sand on the ground by the bird feeders. Worked great except I had to keep clearing the fresh snow from the piles of sand. Short story even shorter, I filled a small tube type feeder with sand. This feeder has been up for about a week now & it works great! Like I said, it is so simple, why didn't I ever think of this before?