Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi to everyone


I am about to build a new bird table, I would like to keep magpies & jackdaws of it so I am going to enclose it with mesh ? what size mesh lets all the little birds in say up to blackbird or thrush, I would be grateful for any help on this matter.

Reason for keeping the bigger birds of the table is cost they can and do destroy fat balls in minutes also they scare everything of the table for ages

Regards

Kevin

Hi Kevin,

I've made an anti cat barrier on three sides of my bird table from the lightest weight stock fencing which is about 4 inch squares. Anything larger than blackbirds have to go round to the open side, so that should work. You'd just have to make sure they couldn't perch on the edge and reach in though.

It has been very successful in keeping the cats off and we haven't had any casualties on the bird table since I put it up.

Kevin, 4 inches sounds about right, but I would make sure that the netting isn't right round the outside of the bird table. Thrushes and blackbirds like to land and then walk to their food, whereas the tit family and robins, say, will fly clean through the netting to the food. Unfortunately, by using netting you will also exclude any great spotted woodpeckers or jays which might be interested in your fat balls!

We find that the mere fact of having a sloping roof on our bird table is a deterrent to the bigger birds being able to fly easily onto it as they seem to worry about damaging their wings as they fly in close to try and land. The roof also protects any food from on it when it rains.
I don't think I've ever seen a bird table that has wire netting around it. I'd be interested to see how effective it is and wonder whether the birds might be a little wary of using it if they've previously been used to an "open" bird table in your garden., thinking it's some kind of trap.