Greedy crows eating all the food in my garden... Way of stopping them? (1 Viewer)

Hello all!

I'm Sam, and I live in Hampshire UK!

I have a medium sized garden with a nice but of grass and a few small trees and bushes. I love feeding the birds and sitting and watching them, especially now that its coming cold!

I get quite a few different breeds, and the small birds are my favourite! Lots of finches (gold, green, chaffinch, bull), tits (mainly blue and coal), dunnocks and house sparrows, and the good old robins!

I have a bird table and then about 6 or 7 different hanging feeders.

My problem is though, that I put my food out, I get TONS of big birds who just swarm and eat all the food! I get 5 wood pigeons, 3 magpies and about 15 crows.

Now I don't mind at all because they need to eat, but they scare away all the little birds and leave nothing behind, and in 10minutes the food I've put out is gone!

Is there a way of having a feeder just for little birds so that they can definitely get some? Or to discourage bigger birds from coming in the garden so often? I know it sounds cruel but they just eat EVERYTHING! I saw a crow take off with a fat ball, a whole fat ball the other day, and I put 4 out and in 30 minutes they were gone!

I just want to make sure that the little birds are getting something.

Help?

Thank you!

My only suggestion would be caged feeders to prevent the larger birds from accessing the food. Get a couple and take the others down until the crows learn your garden is no longer a reliable food source, then you may be able to start putting some of the others back up in time. With your table, you could get some chicken wire (up to around 45mm mesh) and secure it around the head to prevent the larger birds accessing that too.

What foods are you putting out? Lately, I've been putting crumbled suet on one side of my bird table, and sunflower hearts on the other. Crows and flickers swarm in and eat the suet (especially crows, although the suet is supposed to be for the flickers), but they don't take that much of the seed, so I still get finches and sparrows popping round for that.

I limit the crows to half a container of crumbled suet per day, so they mostly come round in the morning, and once the suet is polished off, I don't see that much of them.

So, yeah, if you haven't done so already, I'd suggest putting out some smaller seeds that the crows won't be so attracted to, and limiting the amount of crow-friendly snacks, so they get in the habit of coming round once a day, then leaving when their treat is finished. That clears the field for your smaller birds to enjoy an afternoon feed.

Oh, one other thing you could try is limiting the amount of perching space around the feeder. Mine is very small, and sheltered by plants and a low wall, so only one crow can use it at a time--two, if they really crowd. I've found that crows will usually stand and wait their turn, when something else (usually a house sparrow) is already eating. House sparrows are the only ones that don't seem to mind a big fat crow staring at them, while they have a snack. I've seen sparrows perching near crows in the garden, too; maybe they're used to each other.

Make a large cage out of chicken mesh for the ground feeders, hange fat balls inside it. Place hanging feeders over it so the spillage is protected from large birds.

Very good suggestions. I really can use the idea of the placement of a mesh covered ground feeder under a hanging feeder to protect spillage. I never would have thought of that. :t: