Bird feeding – how to attract and feed wild birds away from home?

I’ve loved birds for many, many years, but I never really thought about feeding and watching them until now! I’m a road biker, and with plenty of natural beauty around where I live, I come across plenty of birds on my rides. Today I biked out to a couple ponds and tossed bird seed here and there, trying to lure some birds into a free meal.

It didn’t go so well. They either ignored me entirely, or I tossed the seed to close to them and I scared them off. I was using a common wild bird mix from the grocery store, but the birds didn’t seem too interested.

Is it fairly hard to get the attention of small wild birds? Do you have any tips for me? I’d really like to get a couple birds close to me so I can film them.

Thanks!
- BlueWorld