[wisb] Re: Fish line deters HOSPs from feeders

I've found that removing perches from feeders keeps the House Sparrows away, as 
well. It worked very well for me in Indiana before I moved to Milwaukee.

Of course the feeders need to have some wire mesh or other material so the 
other birds can find a foothold so they can feed. Here are the feeders that 
worked for me:

1. This feeder from Wild Birds Unlimited has perches, but they can be flipped 
up. I tied them up with garbage bag twisty ties, just in case an enterprising 
HOSP figured out how to flip them down. Birds cling to a metal mesh to get at 
the feeding ports: 

http://tinyurl.com/y87zpy8 

2. And this Duncraft feeder has no perches. The feeder is surrounded by a wire 
cage:

http://bit.ly/nP3r5h

Bernie Sloan
Milwaukee

--- On Sat, 8/27/11, pready tds.net <pready@xxxxxxx> wrote:

From: pready tds.net <pready@xxxxxxx>
Subject: [wisb] Fish line deters HOSPs from feeders
To: wisbirdn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Saturday, August 27, 2011, 10:25 AM

Hi Birders-
I discovered that House Sparrows can be prevented from pigging out at
bird feeders by simply hanging some monofilament fishing line from the
feeder. A few strands is all it takes. I have used it on 3 feeders
here at home and they stay off those 3 feeders. Since I don't have
many HOSPs around here I decided to try it at work where we have a
small flock that raids our display feeders everyday. I put fish line
on 2 of the 5 feeders and the HOSP will not use those feeders. The 2
have mixed seed that the HOSPs were hitting hard all day before adding
the fish line on Monday. So now I am convinced this works and it
doesn't harm them. All other birds don't seem to care about the fish
line. Here at home on my sunflower feeder I get both finches,
cardinals, BJs, grackles, MODOs, BCCHs etc.
This could really save $$ for those who don't wish to feed HOPS but
can't avoid it if they want to feed desirable native song birds.
If you give this a try post results please.

Pat Ready
Stoughton
Dane Co.
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