Back garden birds

Really enjoying this thread. To all posters, please keep it up as the Spring proceeds.

I fitted one of those birdfeeders in my back garden. Got loads of birds using it. Then one day I say a rat climb up the tree, then down the string that the feeder was suspended on. My Daughter saw it a freaked out. So I had to take it down on her insistence. Even if I put a disc on the line (like they do on ships docked in harbour) then I expect that there will be some debris falling down on the grass and still attracting vermin. Was wondering if anyone else had this problem, and how did they solve it?.

We cannot use open feeders at all as pesky rooks swoop in and scatter the little birds every chance they get. One rook found a half closed lid , tipped the feeder and poured the contents down to his pals on the ground. We are more careful with closures since then.

I just discovered something fairly recently. We have a couple of bird feeders hung up in the back yard and we get lots of the usual birds such as sparrows, goldfinches, greenfinches, tits, etc etc. But a couple of months ago this magpie (we're not sure if theres more than one) would swoop down at speed and scatter the little birds. We thought it was sort of funny until we seen him kill a few of them. We seen at least 4 being killed over the last 2 weeks and have found clumps of feathers further out at the back and around the side of the house so it has killed more than 4.

I did read that magpies can take eggs and young chicks from other birds nests especially during the nesting season but is this normal behaviour for them at this time of year?