I took down all but my nyger feeders in May to discourage the chipmunks and squirrels from burying seeds and nuts in my flowerbeds. Since the growing season is now well underway, I put a couple of peanut feeders and one hopper feeder back into circulation recently. That very same day a grackle appeared and told his friends about the new food sources and the hopper feeder was emptied out by evening.
Usually a large flock of grackles comes through this time of year to pluck the ripening acorns from the oak trees. The trees produced very few acorns this year, and the grackles have had to make other arrangements. Lucky me.
Since then I’ve been playing around with various schemes to discourage them. I’m not going to refill the hopper feeder for awhile. And while grackles are able to hang from the peanut feeders, they find it’s just not as much fun as piling onto a hopper feeder with 20 of your friends and making an epic mess.
Thankfully many of my favorite birds—the more polite chickadees, nuthatches and woodpeckers—are more than happy to eat from hanging peanut feeders and have been making regular visits with their new families.