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]