American Goldfinches

[Pat]

Any of you bird lovers out there have any experience with feeders that are enclosed in a wire mesh or the like so as to freely permit goldfinches and similarly sized birds to access the feeder but exclude most blackbirds and their close relatives like Grackles.

We don't feed the birds because we believe they can't find feed for themselves. We feed them to attract them to where we can enjoy watching them. We are not particularly enamoured of watching the motorcycle gang of the bird world (flock of redwing blackbirds and their relatives) drive off the cardinals, finches and wrens and then clean out our 4 feeders in less than a day. From a practial standpoint with thistle seed at $1.09/lb in 50 lb bags I choose to not spend that much feeding the bullies.

I enclosed one of our thistle feeders in one inch poultry wire. The finches can and do get through it to the feeders but they really don't like being inside something that makes it so hard to get away quick (they are, after all, nervous as birds.) This is how it looks to me. Anyway goldfinch feeding at that feeder dropped to under 1% of what it was before.

Next I will be trying rectangular "cage fencing" material with 1X2 inch holes to see if that works better. Anyone with experience in these matters could save me a lot of hassle and experimentation by sharing their knowledge.

Failing that, if successfull, I will share my results here.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[egon]

I do beleive that there are some feeders specifically made for the thistle seed. These should keep the bigger birds away.

In the past I have made smaller landing perches and then placed a string from the top to the bottom perches which made things easy for the chicadees to hang on to but not for the larger birds.

I have also seen gourd type feeders with a small entryway that allowed the smaller birds in but kept out the large ones.

Note: Canola seed will work as well as the thistle seed.

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[egon]

Picture of the type I used a string on.

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[egon]

Picture of thistle seed type feeder.

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Egon, Of the 4 feeders we have up now (oops 3, one was so sun damaged it fell apart yesterday) two are made to be thistle feeders. The other two, (now one) work well with black oil sun flower seed or the mixes, basically whatever is sold for bird seed larger than thistle.

One of the thistle feeders requires the bird to hang upside down to get to the feeder hole. That worked well to limit the blackbirds for a few days and then the smarter ones cracked the code and some of the others did a monkey see monkey do. Shortening the perches helps a little as it makes it harder for the blackbirds to get comfy but they manage.

I have seen commercial feeders with wire mesh around them to exclude squirrels. Places like Orcheln's, Tractor Supply, and Atwoods charge about $24 for a semirigid clear plastic tube with thistle size holes in it and plastic tubes stuck through for perches wit no provisions for excluding anything. They have no screw on perch with access fittings. Better quality construction takes yo to the $35-$50 level pretty quickly.

I'm just about ready to make my own out of ABS or PVC for a couple bucks a copy. It isn't rocket science to drill thistle access holes/slots and stick rods through for perches. You can grind some material away to make the wall thinner where the thistle hole is to make it easier for then to get a grip on a seed with their bill. Store bought end caps would be the biggest expense, should I opt for their convenience.

This brings me back to where I am now...Feedeers that would be emptied in way less than a day by hoardes of blackbirds. Did I mention that thistle seed is $1.09/lb in 50lb sacks? If we filled the feeders daily it would be abot $100/month and that isn't going to be happeninig. We feed the birds to attract them so we can watch then, not because they can't fend for themselves. It is in our selfish self interest to feed the little birds and exclude the blackbirds. The black birds DO NOT NEED TO BE FED at a feeder. They do just fine with no assistance. We sometimes see large flocks of blackbirds that extend from horizon to horizon and other times flocks in the hundreds so they arent in short supply.

I want to discourage blackbirds from becoming habituated to our feeders because they don't play nice with the little birds we are trying to attract or the cardinals or anything but other blackbirds.

Shooting them isn't a good option for various reasons. Even with a BB gun to make it economical it would be a full ltime job with overtime as there is essentially an unlimited supply. I'd be carting away wheel barrow or FEL buckets of dead birds to have to burry out of concern for bird flu and such.

With no one offering tested dimensions from actual experience I will continue my experiments and try to discover a barricade dimension/configuration that doesn't make the finches etc too nervous and still excludes the blackbirds.

I thought I might have to go high tech and do something like use a perch divided into two conductive pieces with an insulating spacer between them that is weight sensitive to switch a solar powered high voltage discharge across the conductive perch halves. I'm sure there is a level of discharge that would be highly motivating for blackbirds to leave the perch but would be non-lethal to the smallest birds in case of a malfunction or "hard landing" or whatever. I could probably incorporate a retrigerable monostable multivibrator to ensure that the perch was supporting a weight well in excess of a finch for a second or two before zapping. This should virtually elliminate shocking birds significantly lighter than a blackbird. Unfortunatley avoinding shocks to cardinals wold require a whole new level of complexity so I probably won't go this hi tech route.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Egon, I haven't seen any rape seed (oops I mean CANOLA seed) for sale in these parts. Haven't made a big search either just haven't come across it.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[egon]

The string on the perches keeps them off. The little birds hang onto the string.

Pop bottles with proper inserts for thistle seed work too.

Egon

[NSbound]

I use the clear plastic feeder with the tiny holes just big enough for the goldfinches to peck out the niger seed. Blackbirds and crows aren't too interested - maybe just too much work? [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[egon]

That is the kind I was thinking about.

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Ian, One of my feeders is the little hole type for Niger thistle seed and the holes are below the matching perches so the bird has to hang upside down to feed. The Finches and other little birds don't seem to mind at all. It doesn't have universal appeal for the blackbirds but several will suffer to hang upside down and fish out the seeds. I will be looking for a way of preventing the blackbirds from sharing the feeder and eating all the seeds and preventing the desired birds from feeding.

It doesn't take a few hundred black birds very long to clean the feedeers out.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]