Grackles (1 Viewer)

My feeders have been up for a few days now and I have been enjoying goldfinches, cardinals, tufted titmice and hummingbirds. Yesterday the grackles moved in and have been chasing the other birds away. How do you keep some of the undesirable birds away?

thanks

You could try adding another feeder that the birds have to cling onto the side to eat. The grackles won`t bother with them and make sure you keep the feeders full after awhile once they know there`s a steady food supply they might become less aggresive

Are you still having problems with grackles, laleo?

It might be too soon to tell, but I may have seen the last of the invasion. I took my solar feeders down for a little over 2 weeks, and cleaned up any remaining mess under the feeders that could tempt the grackles into sticking around. I waited until I stopped seeing them in my yard at all; they even got discouraged enough to stop coming to the bird bath.

Then I put my feeders back out, but I decided to try a seed by Morning Song called Finch & Chips (love that name!) I should probably be putting it in a finch tube feeder with tiny holes, but I just wanted to give it a try to see how it would go over. The Finch & Chips is nyjer seed (which grackles don't like) mixed with tiny chips of hulled sunflower.

So far, so good! All of my little birds returned the first day (except for my goldfinches, they must have migrated?) and have been enjoying this food. And there's hardly any mess under the feeders because the sunflower chips are tiny enough that the little birds aren't wasting any. (With whole sunflower hearts, the birds would take a kernel and start eating it, but 1/2 to 3/4 of the kernel would fall out of their beaks onto the ground). So there's nothing on the ground for the grackles to really peck at.

I've noticed a couple grackles so far at the feeder, but they have a really hard time perching. They have to sort of cling and flap their wings madly at the same time to hold on. With the whole sunflower kernels, they could manage to fill their beaks full several times before hopping on the ground to take a break before doing it again. Now they are avoiding the nyjer seed, so they have to work very hard to cling and pick through the seed for the teeny bits of sunflower. It must be too much work, because I hardly see the grackles at all, and they aren't getting aggressive and guarding "their" feeder because they just don't seem interested.

So I'm crossing my fingers that the invasion doesn't return to drive away my little songbirds!

Yup. I spoke too soon.

Now the grackles are perching precariously on the feeder and, rather than picking out the sunflower chips while perching, they are throwing all the seed on the ground with their beaks so they can peck at their leisure from the mess they've made below the feeder. :C

Back to square one.

Lady Eagle said:

Yup. I spoke too soon.

Now the grackles are perching precariously on the feeder and, rather than picking out the sunflower chips while perching, they are throwing all the seed on the ground with their beaks so they can peck at their leisure from the mess they've made below the feeder. :C

Back to square one.

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Hello,

I've been dealing with the same problem and have the Grackle problem taken care of, for now anyway.

One thing you can do is put up a haven tube feeder. If you want to go the haven tube feeder route you want purchase one with the width or diameter base as wide as you can, 10+ inches.

I first purchased a Duncraft Create-A-Haven to place on my current tube feeder. The cage was 8 inches in diameter. The Grackles were able to put their head into the cage and could just reach the yummy seed with their long beaks.

A friend that owns a wild bird store gave me an old feeder they were no longer using. It's a demo model a company never ended up making, I think it's a Duncraft. It's based on the same concept as the Duncraft Squirrel-Proof Selective.

http://www.duncraft.com/Squirrel-Proof-Selective--P666C198.aspx

Once I placed the haven tube feeder up with the large cage the Grackles could not reach the seed. The base of cage on the feeder my friend gave me is 10 inches. I'm going to try a Duncraft Squirrel-Proof Selective as well since I like to have cracked sunflower/black oil in the back yard and in the front tree.

I also put up a tube feeder/large seed tray with Safflour seed. The Grackles have been leaving this seed alone. The Mourning Doves and House Finches like this seed so far. I've heard when food supplies are low the Grackles may start eating the Safflour.

Good luck,

although my grackles dont throw seeds on the floor they do just pick out the nuts. its so funny watching the parents feed the chicks. the chicks are so cute without their long tail feathers. theres one juvenile with his tail feathers still being fed! i wouldnt mind if the grackles all died though, they scared away my chickadees! >=(

amkid247 said:

although my grackles dont throw seeds on the floor they do just pick out the nuts. its so funny watching the parents feed the chicks. the chicks are so cute without their long tail feathers. theres one juvenile with his tail feathers still being fed! i wouldnt mind if the grackles all died though, they scared away my chickadees! >=(

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It's a love/hate relationship with me or more like Love/Your driving me crazy birds! relationship

I enjoy the Grackles and Starlings and think they are beautiful birds. Now that the seed is all set they have been eating 3 suet cakes a day. The Grackles don't take as much as the young Starlings but are intimidating to the other birds. Between the Starlings and Grackles they have driven most of the other birds away.

When the young Starlings started taking over I did get some nice photos of them. I'll attach a few cute ones.

The Grackles pretty much had me take the Squirrel Buster down. You can set the weight where the seed ports will close so you can choose the birds that come to the feeder.

I set the tension so the ports would close when a Grackle landed on the feeder. Within a few hours they figured out to land on another feeder and then jump/fly lightly and land on the Squirrel Buster to keep the ports open enough to grab a nut Grrrr.

I set the tension again so a light landing would close the ports. I was like ha! got ya! The next day they were hopping on the cardinal ring. When they hop up the ports would open for a split second and they would grab a nut.

I had to set the tension so high that a 2nd house sparrow would close the feeder.

I'm going to try one more time and see what I can do with the Squirrel Buster before getting another haven feeder. I'll move the feeder so it's away from the other feeders so they can't lightly hop to it and see what happens. If they hop again I'll remove the cardinal ring and just use the perches, maybe that will help.

See ya!

Try straight niger in the tube feeder and put safflower in your other feeder. The grackles can't manage the niger and they don't like the safflower. Meanwhile the finches and grosbeaks like the safflower, the chickadees, goldfinches will take the niger. I always avoid sunflower through the summer because of grackles, and then go back to sunflower in the fall after most grackles have moved on.

Scott

cavan wood said:

Try straight niger in the tube feeder and put safflower in your other feeder. The grackles can't manage the niger and they don't like the safflower. Meanwhile the finches and grosbeaks like the safflower, the chickadees, goldfinches will take the niger. I always avoid sunflower through the summer because of grackles, and then go back to sunflower in the fall after most grackles have moved on.

Scott

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Thanks Scott,

That's my current setup in the front tree. The Mourning Doves and House Finches like the Safflower so far. Looking at the House Finch beak I can see why. That conical beak looks perfect for cracking open hard seeds.

In the back yard I have another Thistle Seed tube feeder and a Haven Tube Feeder with Cracked Sunflower / Black Oil. The Tube Haven Feeder is big enough to keep the Grackles from getting at the seed.

My problem now is the suet so I put up a upside down feeder with a dome right on top covering it so the young Starlings don't learn as quickly they can hang upside down like the woodpeckers if they keep trying at it.

I felt bad excluding the Red Bellies and the 2 Mocking Birds that feed on the suet so I do keep one suet up for them.

I ordered a few special suet feeders that may keep the Starlings off the suet feeder or make things more difficult for them, I'll see what happens.

See ya,