I want to stop the Common Grackles and House Sparrows from using this feeder, so I put the grill of an old fan on top. The yellow finch feeder works but I’m not sure about the dark green Brome feeder.
Is that grill too big? I have not seen any birds on it since I added the grill the other day. However, the Black-capped Chickadees had left because the Common Grackles and House Sparrows were swarming on it. Will it simply take the chickadees and finches time to find it again, or are they unable to access it? Does anyone know?
I don’t see any birds at the finch feeder, either, since putting up the Brome last winter. The two feeders look really close in the picture but in real life they are four feet apart.
Birds can be very suspicious about changes to something they’re used to. I bet you start to see your little birds again in a few days once they realize the new parts aren’t going to eat them.
They look pretty accessible for finches and chickadees to me. Breeding season may be changing where they spend the most time. My finch knowledge is limited, but when breeding season starts, chickadee flocks split up and they become territorial between pairs. Your feeder may have been in the territory of a flock of several pairs during winter, but only one now that the flock split.
The chickadees who visit me have a nest with babies around the edge of their territory. It’s a bit of a distance and they’re pretty focused on insects and spiders. When seeds were around half of their diet over winter, they visited my house several times a day, but it’s rare now. Seeds are usually only about 10% of their diet during summer and they usually feed only animal sources, mostly arthropods, to young in the nest. I think it’s been about a week since the last visit here. They’ll usually grab a peanut or walnut bit if I go out to them, but they’re too busy for my house to be worth the trip, especially since my presence with food is no guarantee.
Young may still be at nests or not very mobile yet, especially if a first nest attempt failed. It may be just a matter of waiting for young to become proficient at flying.
Just in regard to the House Sparrows, I’ve found hanging several strands of monofilament fishing line around the feeder from its top so they dangle down the sides to be 100% effective in keeping them away.
My feeders don’t draw birds once the migration is over and the breeding begins. Birds are coming to the elderberry and stripping them, the phoebes and flycatchers are hunting my eaves for insects, everything is normal. The only busy feeders are the hummingbirds.
Your feeders look good and since they are coming to your water, they haven’t abandoned you. I think they are busy elsewhere and you’ll see them when they need seed.
That’s what I did on the yellow feeder. But I don’t have a smaller grill for the other feeder to hang them from. I used very thin wire instead of fishing line because that’s what I had on hand. It works.
Last year, the first year I had a feeder, the goldfinches were regular visitors at the yellow finch feeder all summer till the end of the first week in September. I’m puzzled why they barely visit this spring. I saw them twice but that’s all. I had only one feeder last summer. Are they scared off by the second feeder, or by the birds that visit it?
UPDATE June 21: It’s a mistake to rest something like a grill on top of the Brome feeder. A Black-capped Chickadee told me it’s not working. The Chickadee landed on the Brome feeder, then acted like it could not get any food and went to eat at the finch feeder. When I checked, I realized my mistake.
The Brome feeder is designed with a core where the food goes, and a sheath overtop that rests on a spring. When the birds land on the perch, the sheath lowers and they can get food. If the bird (or squirrel) is too heavy, the sheath lowers so far that it covers the food. So when I put the grill on top of the roof (which is the top of the sheath) it was so heavy that the sheath covered the food even for the little birds.
I have now removed the grill. I don’t see any birds at the feeder but at least they can get food when they come. You’re supposed to be able to set it for different sizes of birds. Factory setting is recommended but I wanted Cardinals to eat at the feeder. Sometimes a male came to eat seed off the ground that had dropped from the feeder.
Thinking Cardinals are larger than Goldfinches and Chickadees, I changed the setting for larger birds. That’s when I started getting that great big Common Grackle, also House Sparrows. I changed it back but there are no marked settings so I don’t know if it’s right or wrong.
Cardinals do prefer platform (flat tray type) feeders or the ground. I have had them on my tube type feeder, they are awkward and tend to “spin cast” the seeds when they take off.
Thanks for this information. The box in which the Brome feeder came shows a cardinal perched on it so I naturally thought this is a good feeder for cardinals. That is rather deceptive.
