Bird Table News

I’ve been asked this question - and it’s a difficult one to give a short simple answer to.  I have had the same problem and am still trying new things to find answers to it.

I’ve recently put a bird station in my garden and have started to attract some nice species for example Blue Tits, Great Tits, Green Finches, Thrushs the list goes on. 

However i’m also having trouble with nuisance birds like starlings who always arrive in large swarms and almost eat the whole food supply on the feeders especially the mealworms while at the same time scaring the smaller and more charming birds away. 

Do you have any tips on how to minamise this, i have all my feeders concentrated on the bird station (4nr in total plus a small table), should i purchase more feeders and try spreading them around the garden?  Any help would be much appreciated.

This is what I have done.

I was given this advice which has proved useful: 

 

put cheaper, easily accessible bird food and kitchen scraps in one area of the garden  I put it in the front garden.   Doing this has  brough starlings to this area. 

So in one area of the garden I have an open topped bird table where I put bird food  and put some scraps on the ground

In another area of the garden (the back garden) I put out bird food in -

• a meshed ground feeder.  I used to have the mesh wide.  This meant thrushes and blackbirds could get in - but so could all the starlings.  Now I have put the mesh so small so starlings cannot get in.  Meshed ground feeder.  I try to feed the blackbirds and thrushes a different way.
• near and ‘inside’ a bush - this is where the blackbirds and thrushes go (along with other birds)
• on a birdtable that is covered in wire and string to keep the larger birds out. This is one place where blackbirds and thrushes go.  Here are some photos of my Bird table with wire round to keep out the larger birds.  Since this photo I have added more wire.  The blackbirds and thrushes go inside here.  Bird table with wire round
• In hanging bird feeders (without the seed tray to catch fallen seed)
• In a caged hanging seed bird feeder to keep larger birds out.

I wanted to keep the starlings out, yet I wanted to feed the blackbirds and thrushes.  This has proved difficult.

I have found that (luckily) the blackbirds and thrushes go to the wire covered bird feeder for the cheese and apple I put out.

The blackbirds and thrushes also go to the bush and get the bird food there (luckily the starlings don’t seem to go there)

I have seen the starlings gathering round the open topped bird table at the front of the house and getting kitchen scraps off the ground.

I also get crows and rooks which is another reason why I had to change the way i feed the birds.

I put out different bird feeders in different areas and did not cluster them really close together.

Hope this helps.  If anyone else has any ideas they would be welcome.

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In the past I’ve also had problems with cats killing my garden birds.  By coincidence a year ago today I wrote about  Cats killing birds again  - written 22 July 2007

Tags: bird tables, starlings