Keeping magpies and starlings off the bird feeders

Valmont

They tend to bully the smaller birds off the feeder and I was wondering if anyone had any methods of keeping them away. I've trained my dog to chase off the magpies but he isn't always on duty.

Graces7

Any loud noise eg pan lids banged together and a shout ( helps to have no neighbours....;)

Oh and two tree climbing cats....

The local magpies now hover outside our trees chunnering and the starlings are long gone.

Valmont

Graces7 wrote: »

Oh and two tree climbing cats....

If you have taught your cat to discriminate between the nuisance birds and the nice ones, fair play!

Graces7

Nice one!

What happens is that the wee birds dodge and evade while the magpies fly.

Our cats are black and white too... One used to climb to a magpie nest.

Dog who is trained to "see them off" cannot tell the diffierence. Takes off after a blackbird.

Valmont wrote: »

If you have taught your cat to discriminate between the nuisance birds and the nice ones, fair play!

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Graces7 wrote: »

Oh and two tree climbing cats....

I thought at first that you were trying to be funny with that comment but I see now that you were serious.

Probably the worst piece of advice possible when it comes to helping/protecting garden birds!


OP: I find that attaching feeders by strong elastic bands deters the bigger birds, as they don't like how the feeders move when they alight on them.

Graces7

Tripp Disgusting Kickback wrote: »

I thought at first that you were trying to be funny with that comment but I see now that you were serious.

Probably the worst piece of advice possible when it comes to helping/protecting garden birds!


Not at all, young person. Please read all my post before starting this kind of vituperative attack.

I am perfectly serious. My cats invade the magpies' territory so that the magpies leave the territiory for the small birds.

Sweet logic.

I do know what I am doing, even if your ideas are different. VIVE LA DIFFERENCE!!!

magicbastarder

so the cats scare the magpies away, but not the small birds? do the smaller birds know something we don't?

ppink

I put our feeder close to the sunroom of the house. The big birds will not come near now especially if there is someone inside and the little birds are now so used to us they will be feeding as we as refilling, they have gotton over their initial hesitance:)

Valmont

Well my dog seems to ignore the small birds as I think his sight isn't the best but whenever he sees magpies or anything that size he runs up and barks underneath them. I'm not worried about him climbing up and killing the birds like your cat!

I will try the elastic band idea and report back in a week!

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Graces7 wrote: »

Not at all, young person. Please read all my post before starting this kind of vituperative attack.

I am perfectly serious. My cats invade the magpies' territory so that the magpies leave the territiory for the small birds.

Sweet logic.

I do know what I am doing, even if your ideas are different. VIVE LA DIFFERENCE!!!

Firstly I'm probably as old as yourself but that has nothing to do with anything. In fact it's quite insulting to younger contributors. Secondly, there was no rudeness intended or present in my reply. That was no attack!
I still stand by my statement that to suggest "tree climbing Cats" as a means of detering birds from feeders is nonsense to 99.9% of the Garden Bird feeders on this little island of ours. Cats that will "chase" Magpies will do so to other birds and I don't care how yours behave as I'm talking about all other cats.

As for thinking you were joking: many contributors here use facetious comments to make a point and yours honestly felt very much in the vein. Sorry if you feel hurt but I still think it's a nonsense to suggest Cats generally as guardians of bird feeders.

dom17

check these out

http://www.birdfood.ie/products.php?area_id=2&nav_id=140

Kai

The irony...

"I wanted to feed the hungry birds but all these other hungry birds kept eating the food"

Graces7

Insulting? No way. Odd way to interpret that

And I am not hurt; simpy your views on cats are well known, sadly.

Birds kill other birds; we all love to hear the cuckoo, but oh his habits .. and small birds mob cuckoos.... That is life.

I mentioned magpies, as if you deter them from the garden, ergo they cannot get at the feeders, as they were doing here also at one stage.

My cats climb trees; very well indeed.

The magpies do not like that.

There is no need for the cats to chase them. Simply their silent presence atop the trees is enough.

And a cat climbing a tree is fully occupied in climbing and birds are not stupid.

Smaller birds are more agile and less scared.

One cat I had, from whose mouth I rescued a wren, was ever thereafter followed wherever he went by her, sounding her loud alarm which made hunting impossible for him.

Watching these things in quietude is an education.

And I did not train my cats; i simply watched what was happening and noted the success of it.

With great awe and wonder.

The first time I saw a black and white cat atop a tall tree where a magpie liked to nest was amazing.

The magpie never returned there. No chasing.

Nature is wonderful; and nature includes cats.

The result here is that our wee songbirds are no longer harrassed by magpies and can feed and breed in peace.

Because the cats deterred the larger birds.

So yes the cats are defending the feeders and they are hung so that the small birds are safe from the cats.

This is the way it has evolved here.

And in other places I have lived and fed birds. Over a decade now.

So yes, the cats are protecting the feeders.. Of course they may have other ideas in their sweet furry heads..

That is their privilege.

And mine to know them and to know the small songbirds who follow me round the land here.

Age teaches a gentleness if you allow it to do so. if you watch nature not try to dominate or alter it.

Rest in that.

Blessings and Peace this night. As I let the cats out....

Tripp Disgusting Kickback wrote: »

Firstly I'm probably as old as yourself but that has nothing to do with anything. In fact it's quite insulting to younger contributors. Secondly, there was no rudeness intended or present in my reply. That was no attack!
I still stand by my statement that to suggest "tree climbing Cats" as a means of detering birds from feeders is nonsense to 99.9% of the Garden Bird feeders on this little island of ours. Cats that will "chase" Magpies will do so to other birds and I don't care how yours behave as I'm talking about all other cats.

As for thinking you were joking: many contributors here use facetious comments to make a point and yours honestly felt very much in the vein. Sorry if you feel hurt but I still think it's a nonsense to suggest Cats generally as guardians of bird feeders.

Valmont

I think your return key is broken.

ppink

dom17 wrote: »

check these out

http://www.birdfood.ie/products.php?area_id=2&nav_id=140

This looks like a good idea, like a cage that the little birds can get through but the big ones cant.

Valmont wrote: »

I think your return key is broken.

lol

Half-cocked

I like my visiting starlings and they're welcome to the food they eat:)

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Graces7 wrote: »

...Smaller birds are more agile and less scared....

...One cat I had, from whose mouth I rescued a wren...

...Watching these things in quietude is an education....

...Nature is wonderful; and nature includes cats....

I really don't know why I'm replying to this as I promised myself I wouldn't but it is just so off the wall that I must.

Small birds are less scared? What amount of watching taught you that? Small birds are more easily stressed by predators. I can PM the folio numbers for the research if you want to chase up a few libraries.

Your Cat had a Wren! enough said and much of your hypothesis debunked by oyur own hand.

Nature in Ireland does NOT include Cats any more than it includes Snakes. Cats are pets/feral but not Nature.

Half-cocked wrote:

I like my visiting starlings and they're welcome to the food they eat

More power to you. That is the attitude to have.:)

Flocks of Starlings are natural in Ireland and should be welcomed. (Doesn't stop me opening a door now and again to scatter them when they have eaten every crumb left out though.:P)

sesswhat

Tripp Disgusting Kickback wrote: »

Nature in Ireland does NOT include Cats

or bird feeders if it comes to that.

Graces7

Tripp Disgusting Kickback wrote: »

I really don't know why I'm replying to this as I promised myself I wouldn't but it is just so off the wall that I must.

Small birds are less scared? What amount of watching taught you that? Small birds are more easily stressed by predators. I can PM the folio numbers for the research if you want to chase up a few libraries.

Your Cat had a Wren! enough said and much of your hypothesis debunked by oyur own hand.

Nature in Ireland does NOT include Cats any more than it includes Snakes. Cats are pets/feral but not Nature.

End of quote...

"No; it is you who are "off the wall" as you put it so..... quaintly.. young person. ( what a meaningless expression you use)

Your whole attitudes and theses are intrinsically unbalanced ( in the technical sense of the word before you take that too as an insult) as you are seeking to preserve one life form only.

At the expense of all and any other and regardless of any other ideas.

And thus you are blind to any wisdom or ideas of anyone who thinks differently and lacking in any compassion or realism.

You have singlehandly lost any support we had for bird fanatics.
Or even for bird charities etc.


No one here has ever denied that cats catch birds; but they are not the wholesale slaughterers that you make them out to be.

And so what?

Cats catch birds; as they have always done. Still abundant birds around.

That IS nature; and your paranoid hatred of cats is the real problem here Irrational.

We have asked several times for your ideas re cats and Ireland historically; no reply because you have no valid one.

No one is impressed by or interested in folios or statistics; as the old adage goes, "Lies, damn lies and statistics"

We have a regard for living creatures that is a caring and a compassion and a balanced one.

That seeks to solve the problem we know of re feral cats with sense and sanity and compassion.

OK; back to the publishing deadline...

Oliverdog

I'm quite new to this forum but may I respectfully suggest we all lighten up a bit - spring is just around the corner . . .

Today we have rooks, magpies, all the small birds - and one male pheasant, without tail feathers, pecking at the base of the feeders.

tyler71

I'm continually impressed with the ingenuity of the crows and magpies in how they are figuring out how to knock, push, or whatever my bird feeders onto the ground. It's like an arms race where I have to come up with increasing security measures to keep them upright and every now and then they figure it out and get a big reward (which seems to last about five minutes). TBH I enjoy watching them conspire as much as I do the large variety of small birds that we're getting - although no pheasant, kudos for that!

Oliverdog

The Magpie is a born hoodlum. I've seen them trying car doors in the market car park in Killorglin.

tyler71

Had secured my feeders and suet blocks with (releasable) cable ties and thought I had found the ultimate crow and magpie protection only to come home after a weekend away to find the cable ties (and feeders) in pieces on the ground. Score yet another one to our corvine buddies.
Advice from my parents though is to put some of those light plastic flowerpots at the top of the feeders -not so much to protect the tops of the feeders as to block off the view and stop them studying the feeders from a distance and coming up with more dastardly schemes. So I'll try tomorrow and commence battle again. Getting a nice spread of finches I'd be sorry to disappoint.
Oliverdog, this may only work for regular magpies - not too sure about Kerry ones

Valmont

Well I'm glad my dog hates the local cats and magpies as much as I do; it leaves my garden as a sanctuary for all of the small and pleasant birds. I've seen my dog lazily observe Robins picking around about 5 or 6 feet from him but as soon as anything bigger comes on the scene he runs it off.

tyler71

My dog isn't quite so well behaved - she tends to run around barking at everything to get the feck out of her garden - the smaller birds just tend to move higher up and wait her out but generally don't feed when she's round. Apart from the sparrows - since they started squatting in an unoccupied housemartins nest on our house they've got quite a proprietary air about themselves - should be fun when the original owners return.