I am having a heck of an issue with keeping Starlings off my bird feeder. This may have been discussed in other posts but I cannot find an answer to my particular question. My feeder has a system that makes the arms come down with heavier birds. It works against squirrels, or so. The raccoons have mastered getting up and eating the seeds.
My main question: The starlings are coming in droves and eating the feed up like no body’s business. I have to either stop putting feed out for the smaller birds or coming up with cage type device to put around it.
I was wondering if anyone else had a answer for keeping the large birds from getting onto the feeder and eating the seeds. Such as a cage type device around the top part of feeder with openings large enough to let the smaller birds in, i.e. sparrows, blue birds, chickadee, etc…
I appreciate any suggestions.
Second on safflower seed. It worked for me to eliminate unwanted consumption at my hopper bird feeder from starlings and squirrels but the mourning doves would still scarf it down. Of course the wrap-around squirrel baffle worked well too.
The only suet which worked for me to feed mostly only woodpeckers was pure suet without any flavorings, seeds, fruits or nuts. I had tried hot pepper suet to deter squirrels but the starlings would still go for it.
I appreciate the good advice. I have mealworms in the feeder to feed the smaller birds during this time of the year because of the birds having babies. I know the larger birds, starlings for example, have babies as well. The feeder has side feeding bar tension settings to make it hard for the larger birds to land on the feeder. The starlings have learned to grab on the side of the feeder and pick at the mealworms or they will flap their wings to pick up a few mealworms up before flying away.
I agree with RobertH about using regular suet. I tried the hot pepper suet and it did not work for long. The squirrels did not like it at first but I guess they got used to it and then they gobbled it down.
I use a double screened suet feeder to keep the squirrels and the bigger birds away. The big woodpeckers ( Redbelly and Flickers) can barely reach the suet through the double screened suet feeders. I do not mind that since they just get little bits and pieces of the suet. They do not take big chunks out of the suet and feast on the suet like squirrels do.
I am not sure if the smaller birds can/would feed the safflower seeds to their babies. I enjoy having the bluebirds, titmice, etc around and watching them feeding their babies.
i had to put chicken wire under the eaves of my chic coops as the starlings figured out how to get in there the last couple aprils and steal the feed. id go feed the chics and there would be a half doz. in the coop.
That was what I was thinking I would have to do, put chicken wire around it or something like that around it. My quandary is how to come up with something that will be easily made and also easily taken off , or not being such a pain to take off, and being able to refill the feeder.
the 1in. chicken wire probably would do it. its small enough for the small birds to get in but keep out the bigger ones. wrap the wire around 4 pounded in stakes around your feeder then just make a lid of wire stapled to 1’‘x 1’’ s as a cap. use a couple zip ties for hinges.
A decent pellet gun will keep starlings away pretty good. They are not native (unfortunately here to stay) but cause a lot of issues for birds like purple martins so growing up I was on starling duty often.
I use a pellet gun as well. I keep it next to the door by the feeder. The stralings fly away just far enough to watch me and come back to get the feed. The starlings seem to never go away.
when i get a mess of them together in my big spruces i get the 20ga. and can get several with 1 shot. unless its a weekend the neighbors are at work when i wack em’. there were a bunch of grackles in my cherry this morning, eating blossoms. when i opened the back door they flew into the top of one of my pines. 2 were next to each other. i got them both with 1 shot of #8 birdshot. i havent seen the rest of the flock since.
I had a problem with Starlings nesting in my Purple Martin birdhouses. The remedy was to convert the entrance holes from circular shapes to crescent shapes. The idea is that the Starlings have long legs as compared to to P.M.’ s which have much shorter legs. The holes are called SREH which is the abbreviation for “Starling Resistant Entrance Hole”.
I’m guessing that a bird feeder could be designed with entrance holes although normally they do not. That is the only thought that I have. By the way, Starlings are enemies of other birds especially to Purple Martins.
