The things you notice when you’re home unexpectedly lol.
Anyone have any ideas on how to keep the starlings off the suet without discouraging the woodpeckers? I know they sell cages to keep out the big birds, but I don’t want to discourage the red-bellied woodpeckers who enjoy it as well, and I don’t want to turn it soley upside down feeders only as all sorts of other birds feed on it too. I tried leaving it empty for several days, and they were slow to come back, but here they are……and unfortunetly there really isn’t a good angle to take a pellet gun to them…..
Hubby says the only thing that keeps starlings away is shooting them and setting off fireworks in their nests – basically all out war. (Guess how he spent his summers as a child? It is no wonder he is a good marksman.) After a while the starlings will fly away once they see you in the yard. At that point a scarecrow wearing some of your clothes with a rifle shaped stick might keep them out of your yard. Or you could just ignore it, get rid of your cold, and get a new good job that can pay for suet for the good native birds and the nasty freeloading invasive ones alike. Good luck.
Oh, and some words of wisdom shared from the now gone pa-in-law. Make sure the sights or scope on the weapon of choice are sighted in properly, because bird feeders don’t keep the seed dry once they get bullet holes in them. And it is rather difficult to put chunks back into deck railings too.
Shooting them appears to be the general consensus, just not sure how to manage it with our set up. I’ll jave to think on it.
And its homemade suet, in a giant block, that normally lasts a couple weeks, till the starlings decend, then it lasts a couple days……
Is there something that starlings like as well, or better than suet? If so, offer it up in another area. That is what I do for Blue Jays – they don’t enjoy trying to get at the feeders, and make a mess when they do it, so I offer up peanuts in a platform feeder. The jays go for the peanuts, the feeders don’t empty as quickly (until squirrels learn how to open the top), and everyone is happy.
I do the same thing for the Jays lol. They still occasionally disturb the other feeders, but no where near as badly……I can’t think of anything else the Starlings really go for, they’ll occasionally land on the feeders, but not often or in the same clouds of birds. I’ll have to think on that though…