FreeLists / birdky / [birdky] Re: Bluebird Feeder

["Ann Morgan" <aandm@xxxxxxxx>]

 Judy,  I don't know if this would work with bluebirds as we have never
tried to provide special food for them , but I have had some success with
"training" my feeder birds.  We have hordes of grackles  and sometimes
starlings who descend often on our large sunflower feeder. We have our
feeder out about 15 feet from a picture window at the back of our house.  I
wave my hands and the grackles fly away and give my "regulars "a chance at
the feeder.    If it is a particularly large or
persistant  flock, I open the window and clap my hands several times as
sharply as I can. As they fly away, the regulars
(cardinals,wbnuthatches,chickadees, titmice,downy and rb
woodpeckers,dove,juncos,  wtsparrows, goldfinches and house finches)
immediately fly in .They just seem to know that I don't mean them.  As long
as I stand near the window where they can see me, and I wave my hands even
when just one comes back, the grackles don't return and it does not disturb
the regulars. Of course, I usually have other things to do and can't stand
there long but I wave them off every time I pass though the room and it
gives my regular birds a chance at the feeder. Sometimes the grackles get
tired enough of me that they give up and leave entirely. In case you are
wondering,  there is a field behind our house so no one has to witness my
performance except my long-suffering husband.

If anyone ever figures out a really good solution to this problem, they
should win some sort of birder's Nobel prize. I know a number of people who
have quit feeding the birds because of this problem. It was not that they
especially disliked grackles and starlings, but they just couldn't afford to
feed hundreds of agressive birds who cleaned out their feeders in an hour or
so.

Ann Morgan aandm@xxxxxxxx

Madisonville


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