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?
