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I just moved a sunflower feeder to the porch to see if I can keep the squirrels from throwing away all my seed, and I have gotten a closer look at some of the behaviors of the seed eaters.  The goldfinches just sit there and eat as long as they can, the titmice(including chickadees) grab one and go. And the nuthatches pick through tossing the ones they don't want to the ground when they find the right one, they head to a tree to crack it open.  Has anyone else noticed this?  Do the nuthatches need bigger seed?  Does anyone have a layered set up to keep down the waste? 

Thanks for all input.

HI,

 You are right about all of them. I watch my birds often and have to come to know all of my regular feeders. My Nuthatches love black oil sunflower seeds and Nyger(sp)seeds the best. I do have a layered feeder so that the discarded seeds fall into the lower level platform feeder. It does keep down the waste a bit but some do tend to fall to the ground which isn't wasted from the ground feeding birds anyway. My Nuthatch's love suet cakes too.

Some of the Blue Jays here do that with shelled peanuts -- picking through looking for the best one.  Pretty amusing.