No question - birds are messy eaters!...Do not purchase the general mixed seed bags found at the big box stores, most are filled with low cost fillers (gee, where have a I heard that term used before?)...
Lol, I was thinking the same thing as soon as I read that...
Your streamlined feeding plan pretty much mirrors mine. I don't actively feed squirrels, as Duke tends to be a bit enthusiastic in his reaction to them, but we also limit our feeding in large part to Black Oil Sunflower and suet/deer fat in winter. Niger is offered all year, even during the summer, because Goldfinches breed very late in the summer season and they feed their young with seeds as well as the more common diet of insects fed by most small birds.
We put lots of hummingbird feeders out in summer as well. We typically only have the one species, the Ruby-throated, and they are complete buttheads when it comes to jealously guarding and protecting "their" feeders from each other. Most of the feeders sold commercially have multiple feeding-ports, hold a litre of sugar-water and are designed for places like Arizona where there are may species of Hummers and they all more or less get along, feeding together without too much strife. In the East, we have much better luck with small feeders made from large test tubes hung upside down, corked with rubber stoppers that are drilled to contain a glass pipette that dispenses the water at the bottom. We have a dozen or so of those, spread all around the yard, so those angry little male Hummers can't commandeer them all...but they try! Great fun to watch. This past summer was our best ever for Hummers, with several broods raised in the yard, and later in the season we would have a dozen or more visible at one time, usually well spaced-out and chittering mightily at one another. They are so tame that they will happily hover and feed only a couple feet away from a person seated quietly in a deck chair. It's impossible not to be impressed by them, or to tire of them.
We also try to avoid food on the ground, for all the reasons stated by
RD.
, but some winters (not this one!) we have almost daily visits from flocks of Snow Buntings, Grey Partridges and/or Sharp-tailed Grouse, and those guys all want to feed on the ground. They are about the only desirable birds that will eat all the crap in the cheap "mixed seed" bags, which is a good thing because when they start to show up they eat tons of it!
I think I am winning the war on House Sparrows. I've picked off about a half-dozen and haven't seen one now for at least a few days. They always seem to show up at the most inopportune times; I really need a bathrobe in camo...
And...after somehow escaping notice all day yesterday...the Robin is back in the yard, and looking pretty good.
It seems we've come a long way since the days when bits of stale bread were thrown on the lawn, lol.
I wonder how many thousands of poor birds have died over the years by people feeding bread, who thought they were doing the birds a favour during winter, but in fact were sealing their fate!
Bread seems to really only attract one species: those god-forsaken, nest-destroying, invasive
English House Sparrows!