Yesterday I posted of my trials with the mass of starlings at my feeders.When I finally tired of the noise and commotion, I removed the suet feeders and left three of them on the patio table. This morning I noticed several starlings in the yard looking for their favorite food. Most of them left quickly when they couldn't find the suet feeders hanging in the usual spots. Only three seemed to notice the food on the patio and they hung around most of the day, braving the cat who was sitting at the patio door watching the Bird Network.
Thankfully, today's experience with the starlings was quite different than what I encountered yesterday. I enlarged one of the pictures of a neighbor's roof and counted seventy-five starlings, the house next to it had that many or more, not counting those on my own roof, or the masses on the common area grounds next to my house. I can handle a few starlings at a time, no problem, but believe me when I say that the noise and commotion of two to three hundred starlings fighting for food right next to the house, is not a pleasant experience. The noise was not the only issue, my property is not that large to begin with, (about 1/4 acre), and hundreds of fairly large birds pooping all around the yard and the bird feeders, which are also in my flower beds...well, you get the picture.
From now on, when more than just a few starlings at a time come, I'll not wait as long as I did yesterday to remove the feeders, they'll come down immediately.
4 comments:
A good way to deal with the Starlings. They will disperse when it gets a little warmer and they start nesting. They are kind of pretty during winter. It is too bad they are so destructive to native birds when nesting.
I'm going to keep a look out for starlings and do as you did, remove the feeders if I see any.
starlings, starlings, everywhere there are starlings! They are very pretty looking though!
Oh, Robin, I somehow missed this post. I with ya, sista. I have about ten who cause chaos. A hundred? I'll pull the feeders, too. I took the Zick dough away yesterday but the nuts are still out there. They will be the next to go, but I worry about the nuthatches and titmice.
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