I saw one yesterday. A grackle. The first of the year, but there will be more to come. Down in Atlanta they are thick as thieves and my son Jimmie has declared war on the thieving birds as they come in hordes and devour his birdseed.
Unless you stop filling your birdfeeders, the grackles will come, but as I advised Jimmie, there is a way to ease the grackle pain.
First, don’t put blackoil sunflower seeds in your open feeders while they are around. Switch to safflower seeds. Cardinals and other songbirds will eat safflower seeds, but grackles don’t like them, and if that’s all you offer, they will leave your restaurant.
Secondly, buy a dome feeder for sunflower hearts and other songbird delicacies. You can then lower the dome so that small birds can swoop in and feed, but larger birds, like grackles, cannot squeeze under the top.
I feed the squirrels and ground feeding birds a Supreme Blend Mix, which has sunflower seeds, in the back of my yard, and the grackles can and do feed there, but they don’t rob my feeders and eat my best seeds.
Try these two strategies and you will win the grackle wars this spring.
