VOT - Bird Feeding Help

[BarbaraS]

Hey All,

I love to feed the birds and have 3 seed feeders as well as 3 suet/nut cake feeders. The birds are lovely to look at and they entertain my kitties to no end - Buddy "chatters" to them when they line up close to the house.

The problem is with the pigeons. I've tried to deplete and elimnate the "dross" from the one feeder that I get the cardinals at, but they still come around. We even have "seed catcher nets" to keep that off the grounds, but they still come around.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Spices? Cutouts of enemy animals? Anything?

Barbara

And forget about the one round small bird feeder in Gardener's Supply catalog the claims it is squirrel-proof - it isn't! What a story that is!

Any help would be appreciated.

[Gourmet_Mom]

Having more wildlife around here than I care for, we don't do feeders. They feast on my pears and figs, leaving me none. . They're lucky if I take pity on them in winter if it happens to snow....stinkers!

[Harborwitch]

We really discourage feeders here at the golf course. The seed scatters and strange things pop up on the course that aren't welcome. Then the seed on the ground attracts rodents, which in turn attract snakes (think fake rubber snakes Barbara).

[Mare749]

Don't even get me started on those East Coast pigeons!!! They are the worst! We have them here, too, on Lake Erie, but they are 10 times worse out there by you.

A few years ago, Ron and I took a vacation down the coast to Cape May. Lovely place, by the way....except for those rotten pigeons. We were having a lovely dinner on an outdoor deck at a pretty pricey restaurant, but were getting nervous watching those aggressive birds hovering around. Ron got up to get something and the second he turned his back, one of them swooped in and stole his dinner right off the plate!

The scary part is that it barely moved when I started swinging at him with my purse and yelling at the top of my lungs. Once again, not a good time eating outside.

Sorry I wasn't able to actually help here. Hope someone else can.

[Trixxee]

I hate birds. LOL. No, not really, but they can be so annoying! We had some type of bird make a nest and have their babies in the eave of our condo and they were dropping crap everywhere, on the siding, on the street and then everyone would proceed to drive over it and drag it all over. I think one baby fell out and died. We had to wait for them to leave and then the association came out and put a screen over that area so none will be able to return next year. They were so loud at times it sounded like they were in our family room wall. Freaky.

OK, so I'm no help either.

[cjs]

Poor Barbara, I think you're on your own here.....

[Lorraine]

Folks I know put out fake owls to keep the pigeons away. I duck taped one to my balcony years ago, and it seemed to work. Not sure if it would also scare off the smaller birds though. My neighbour in Toronto bought a $100.00 squirrel proof feeder. First night he put it up, the squirrels had a great time in it.

[cjs]

We bought a few of those owls to protect the vineyard and didn't work worth a darn - the birds sat on top of them.

[labradors]

Quote:

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My neighbour in Toronto bought a $100.00 squirrel proof feeder. First night he put it up, the squirrels had a great time in it.

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Watch Daylight Robbery II (wish the first one were available). I could watch these antics all day.

[Old Bay]

Our office is downtown--80 year old building--pigeons (flying rats) everywhere. We tried plastic snakes, owls, hawks, rice grains (think weddings)--nothing worked. We put out "magic corn"--they left-the game warden asked me, a few months later if I knew why they left--I shrugged; he said if you knew, you wouldn't tell me, would you? I,I,I,????? The case of the missing birds was closed, and the whole town was happy--there are things that do not need to go on the endangered list--sorry, nothing evil intended.