Starlings

[Catherine]

I have a bird feeder in my garden which comprises four hooks with various sizes of feeders. I love watching the birds but my problem now is that the starlings have learnt to hang on and feed from the feeders with much flapping of wings and they are stripping the feeders of seed. Now the smaller birds dont come and feed so much and I dont really know what to do.

[Catherine]

Silly me just realised I have put this in the wrong place. Should have put my glasses on before doing it. Sorry.

[Chantal]

Don't worry, I've just moved it for you. Wasn't sure whether to put it here or in pests though

[Catherine]

Thanks I think they are both. I can see the bird table from where I am sitting with the laptop and there are three on it. I did start chasing them off but I was just wasting my time.

[Monika]

We had the same problem a few years ago and found the only remedy was to surround the feeders with a home made "cage" of chickenwire which let the tits, siskins etc through but not the starlings. Unfortunately, it also kept out the great spotted woodpecker. Since then, our starling population has has gone down drastically and we can put up with the very occasional starling visitor, so we have taken the "cages" off again.
Our biggest bugbear have been the squirrels this last winter. We certainly had to buy a squirrel proof fat feeder because they were going through the fat tins in next to no time.

[Parsons Jack]

Hi all,

Just like to say that I absolutely love starlings. They're such characters, I could watch them for hours. I have a large roofed bird table with 4 hanging feeders from it. Also a fat ball holder hanging from the peanut holder. The starlings mainly go for the fatballs, and argue the toss over which one gets prime position. The two seed holders are shared mainly between the sparrows and the greenfinches. All the while that this noisy lot are making a row, the goldfinches quietly sit on the nijer feeder. We get the occasional siskin and great tit as well. Lots of collared doves and wood pigeons waiting for any spare seed to drop down. I've also got a few birdbaths around and all of the birds make good use of these. It's very amusing watching the starlings take a bath. I've added some links to pictures I took recently.

http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk11 ... s00041.jpg

http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk11 ... s00091.jpg

http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk11 ... gs0011.jpg

Cheers, PJ.

[oldherbaceous]

Dear PJ, what some lovely pictures.

[Primrose]

I know some people don't like starlings but I find them quite fasinating to watch, especially the babies. And the parents seem to be very hard working keeping their young ones fed so who could possibly deny them them having a nice refreshing bath? Nice photos PJ.

[Parsons Jack]

Hi Primrose,

Thanks for the nice comments. What I like also, is when they have got bored with the bird feeders, they go round in gangs scouring the lawn and borders for any little nasties

Cheers, PJ.

[alan refail]

About time to bump this up again. Last year was the first year we had starlings at all, and we had them in swarms (flocks?). Then they all disappeared for the summer. They did a masterly job of clearing up spilt poultry feed (messy eaters hens; even messier eaters ducks).
It was a great joy to see a single starling return last week - just doing a recce we think. By yesterday there were a few score, I reckon.

Croeso'n ôl! - Welcome back!

[Primrose]

Most of the usual birds seem to have been missing from our garden during their annual moult. Now that the berries are all being eaten and this week-end is forecast to be bitterly cold I'm hoping that they'll start returning to our bird table. Sparrows virtually non existent here these days. (Did you see the BBC mention of them on the News this morning?. Not many starlings locally either, although we do occasionally see flocks of them passing overhead en route to somewhere else.

[Johnboy]

Just at present we have the autumnal migration of Scandinavian Starlings which will disperse shortly. This is where they disappear to during the summer months. It is only now that we actually see adult Starlings but during the early summer we get flocks of immature Starlings (the brown jobs) who come in in flocks and feed on my very large lawns and do a very good job of eating Leather Jackets.
I find them quite vulgar birds and the person who gave them their Latin name obviously thought the same.
Sternus Vulgaris!
JB.

[Parsons Jack]

We've got quite a few starlings around at the moment. They did disappear for a while though. Plenty of sparrows around as well, which is nice to see. Lots of goldfinches at the moment too.