Larger birds in back garden...neighbours not happy

Hi all,

So have been feeding birds in my back garden for a long time and at start only put up a peanut feeder - the usual wire cylinder type.

Over the past couple of years I have expanded the feeders and the food I leave out for the birds from ground food .... bread, porridge, mixed seeds, suet pellets, black sunflower sees and handing from a feeding station I would have peanuts and a fatball holder


I was attracting blue tits, sparrows, robins and starling and then the bigger birds coped on that hey No 23. has some decent and easy to get food so now I will have a pair of collared doves, fat wood pigeons (they are so funny you can see them fighting each other away from the food and all the while the crows and hoovering up the food), starlings, magpies also have crows as in Jackdaws, Rooks and even a hooded crow and surprise surprise when he lands the other crows shy away from the food I was surprised at that!
The crows were smart enough to lift the fat ball feeder unlock the lid and remove or peck out the fatball!!
The will even dunk the bread into the water dish I leave out for them.

Unfortunately the larger birds are not liked by some of my neighbours, forgot to mention I live in a three bed semi detach in an estate. And even recently one of the neighbours bout a dummy owl and it sits on top of the fence that backs on each others houses. So now I feel I should deter the larger birds from feeding!!


What do people think? Should I?

It is wonderful even to see them do a fly by during the day checking for food on the ground, they are quite smart animals



Anyways with this in mind I went online and bout a crow proof seed feeder, arrived today. I put it out and was a hit with the sparrows, the starlings were able to get into it though but that not the big issue. The opening at the end of the perspex holder is quite big so a lot of the seed spills onto the base of the feeder for the small birds and then a lot falls to the ground and guess what the Crows see it and are waiting - defeats the purpose i think!? What to members think

I added a plastic flower pot tray to minimise the amount falling to the ground and it helps but if I had known what I know now I would not have bought it. Cost over €25 online

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Should I deter the larger birds for the sake of my neighbours ?? Bear in mind I was only putting out ground feed early in the mornings, it wasn't that the birds were constantly there. They would actually be waiting some mornings before I put out the food.

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Thanks for reading