Dammit birds, it's called a Bird FEEDER

[sirwired]

For christmas, I purchased my wife a bird seed feeder. A lovely unit, well squirrel-proofed, easy to clean, easy to perch, etc. After a few weeks, I supplemented it with a finch feeder. The seed feeder is filled with a mix of sunflower seeds, sunflower kernels, safflower seeds, and peanuts.

For a while, joy was had by all: Many different birds have been attracted to the seed feeder, and the finch feeder has done it's job of attracting finches, and the squirrels are doing their job of staring mournfully at the squirrel-proof feeder.

Well, the finches have decided that they not only want the finch seed (Nyjer "thistle"), but they also like the seed feeder. Not the seeds IN the seed feeder, just the feeder itself. And they amuse themselves by shoveling truly awesome amounts of perfectly good seed out of the feeder ports for whatever fraction it is of my perfectly good mix they actually want to eat. The seed feeder has gone through about a quart of seed since this morning, and it's not even noon yet. If this keeps up, there wont' be any seed left in the thing for the birds that actually eat the seeds contained therein.

Dammit birds... it's a bird feeder, not a bird-seed-tossing competition. Luckily, the prime culprits, Pine Siskins, are migratory and should be leaving soon-ish... I hope. I'm watching one now; tossing one seed after another away to the ground.

I'm at a loss; I'm hoping the local bird store can enlighten me as to how to keep the birds from tossing so much. It's not the waste that bothers me so much, as the likelyhood I'm going to attract every mouse and rat in a 1-mile radius to pig out, and that they'll invade my house when the finches migrate and stop feeding the rodents.

[AriGriffin]

Are the squirrels eating the food that the finches drop?

[sirwired]

They eat some of the dropped food, but I have a LOT (40+) more birds than squirrels. My non-finch customers go through maybe a 1/2 cup in a day. When these finches decided to lay waste to my seed feeder, they look like they're on track to empty a 1 1/2 qt. feeder in 24 hours.

The squirrels just can't keep up with that kind of loss rate, even with some sparrows and doves picking up the slack. When I go to fill the feeders after dark, there is still plenty of uncracked sunflower seed just sitting on the ground.

[DeltaSierra]

all I can suggest is maybe get an identical feeder and fill it with only the seeds they like and hang it nearby - perhaps they'll see that they can get their food easier from that one and quit tossing all the other seeds out of your first feeder.

[csquared]

There is no such thing as a squirrel proof feeder. The squirrels are in cahoots with the Pine Siskins.

[Moirae]

rofl. Oh man, I can't help it, but this is hilarious. Damned smart animals.

[ohsobitter]

I have the same problem w/ the sparrows doing that. I found that if I buy a better birdseed they don't go thru it as quickly. They just toss the millet out since it's a filler in a lot of the supermarket birdseed mixes. To make it most cost effective, I mix cracked corn in w/ it. You can find that at a feed store.

[sms001]

There is no such thing as a squirrel proof feeder. The squirrels are in cahoots with the Pine Siskins.

lol. I wasn't thinking "cahoots" as much as two or three Siskins stashed in a tree somewhere: "You'se guys play your cards right, see? Toss the goods to the ground regular like, and you'se might see your families again when it's time to fly away, capice?

[Food Lady]

So Pine Siskins are the 18-month-olds of the bird world?

[Andara Bledin]

I'm wondering of, perhaps, you can rig some kind of seed-catcher below the feeder to catch the tossed out seeds that you can then put back into the feeder. If it's full of nothing but what they don't like, perhaps they'll stay out of it.

^-.-^

[sirwired]

I have the same problem w/ the sparrows doing that. I found that if I buy a better birdseed they don't go thru it as quickly. They just toss the millet out since it's a filler in a lot of the supermarket birdseed mixes. To make it most cost effective, I mix cracked corn in w/ it. You can find that at a feed store.

Nope; no millet or milo (or cracked corn, actually.) This is the super-fresh (and not-cheap) "Choice" blend from Wild Birds Unlimited. Mostly sunflower seeds, but also Safflower, Sunflower chips (which I suspect is what the lazy finches are digging for), and peanuts. I'm considering my own but then I have a bunch of open bags of seed laying around, as opposed to just the 5-gallon bucket of mix and milk jug of Nyjer I use now.

I'm wondering of, perhaps, you can rig some kind of seed-catcher below the feeder to catch the tossed out seeds that you can then put back into the feeder. If it's full of nothing but what they don't like, perhaps they'll stay out of it.

^-.-^

I am thinking of rigging something up like that... it'll just be kind of a pain to clean every evening, as it's important not to build a "feeding platform" that gets filled with hulls and droppings.

[protege]

I am thinking of rigging something up like that... it'll just be kind of a pain to clean every evening, as it's important not to build a "feeding platform" that gets filled with hulls and droppings.

An inexpensive 'catcher' could be made from a cheap aluminum pie pan. Drill a hole in it, bolt it to the bottom of the feeder, and hang it up. You might have to clean it out every now and then, but it sure beats seeds all over the ground.

As for squirrel-proof feeders, I haven't seen any in mine. They can't get in there. My feeder hangs from a hook under my porch roof

[fireheart]

We have a birdbath in the backyard. It's a nice little thing that comes up to about my knee, if not that.

One of our cats has decided that it's a water bowl. So everytime we let him outside, he will literally shoot over to the birdbath and start drinking from it. He did the same thing with this flowerpot until mum actually used it.

The birds on the other hand, have decided that teasing the cats is the way to go. So they'll chirp at the cats and then they'll fly away when the cats chase after them.

[sms001]

One of our cats has decided that it's a water bowl.

Tastes like chicken?

[wolfie]

Probably too late for this year, but next year find out what the ingredients are in the mix the finches are dumping, and set up a number of cheap feeders, one for each ingredient (get small quantities of each in pure form).

Birds have a habit, when dealing with mixed feed, of tossing the "don't want it" seeds on the ground until they get to one they want, which they eat. Lather, rinse, repeat, feed the rodents. When you see which ingredients the finches will eat (they'll flock to the "all good" feeders, and avoid the "all bad" ones), you might want to try making up your own mix of "all bad" seeds (assuming the "good" ones aren't also a preferred seed for other birds). Alternately (if the "good" ones are all seed that other birds like as well), make up your own mix from "all good" seeds. That way, the mix will have either nothing the finches want (no point tossing the crap to get to the good stuff, since it's all crap), or only what the finches want (no reason to toss anything).

If all else fails, you might need to get 2 or 3 feeders, filling each with a different "preferred" seed. This should stop the tossing, since each feeder will have either nothing a particular bird wants (they'll avoid it), or only what that bird wants (no incentive to toss).