Shiny feeders

i just received a note from a reader who, after months of effort, succeeded in attracting birds to her feeder. To celebrate, she bought a new black shiny metal tube feeder. The birds won't touch it. I had that problem once with plastic tube feeders, three of them, bright and shiny. I hung them where bird traffic had been busy for years. Birds ignored them, won't even perch, much less feed. The only difference between new and existing feeders was the newness, the shine. So, using steel wool I made my new feeders look old and ratty. The shine was gone. That solved the problem. Birds were on those feeders in minutes. Who'd have thought?