I have two pests to contend with as I feed my backyard birds – squirrels and grackles. Both can lay waste to expensive bird seed intended for bluebirds and other songbirds.
I have more or less stopped the squirrels with a baffle on my primary feeder. But baffles don’t stop grackles. They fly in and have figured out that if they stand on the side of the spring-loaded perch, they can still snatch sunflower hearts from the feeder without triggering the weight-sensitive perch – and they come and they come and they come.
As I mentioned before, I recently put safflower seeds in this feeder and grackles now leave it alone. But my bluebirds don’t eat safflower seeds, so I have added another alternative weapon in my arsenal – a Squirrel Proof Audubon Approved Feeder for the sunflower hearts. I found it on-line for about $45, but that’s a small price to pay for protecting sunflower hearts that go for $12 for a 5-pound bag. This feeder has a wire cage far enough away that the grackles can’t stick their nasty beaks in and rob the feeders.
It holds up to 1 ¼ pounds of seed in the protected cage. Smaller birds can easily squeeze though the wire holes, find themselves a perch and feed in peace while the grackles wish they weren’t so damned big.
I still toss a few seed in the back, on the ground, so the grackles and squirrels won’t starve. My main goal is to feed my bluebirds sunflower hearts throughout the year and especially at nesting time. I believe this will do the job.