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.
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.
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