I’ve decided European Starlings are the Japanese beetles of winter. Years ago I never had a problem with the little pigs, but for the last few years they’ve arrived in large flocks and have turned winter bird feeding into an exasperating affair.
I finally took down my biggest hopper feeder on New Year’s Day even though the birds could probably use it more than ever. By next week our low temperatures will be near 20 below zero (F). In fact the “high” for next Tuesday is supposed to be -13. Brrrrr!
While I was taking down the Christmas tree and boxing up all the ornaments in my cozy house, the starlings were outside emptying the just-filled feeder in less than 2 hours. I discovered the mess when I looked out the window and saw piles of black-oil sunflower seeds all over the ground. Of course the squirrels were delighted. Me? Not so much.
I’ve been trying all sorts of tricks in the last few weeks to battle the starlings, but none of them have worked. I even went to my local Wild Birds Unlimited store and asked if they had any ideas about discouraging starlings. The employee I talked to said starlings really love peanuts. There were peanuts in the seed mix I was using, so I bought a couple of bags of seed that doesn’t have peanuts in it and put that in the hopper feeder. They didn’t even blink before tossing it all on the ground in less than a day.
Next I tried putting only millet and safflower in the hopper feeder—seeds I know starlings don’t like at all. You’d think they’d take one look at my offerings and move on, but no. In a continuing act of defiance they tossed all the millet and safflower on the ground too. Now you know why I permanently have nine FAT squirrels in my backyard.
In the afternoon of the New Year’s Day siege, I bundled up and stomped outside. I yanked down the hopper feeder and stuffed it in the garage. Then I fiddled around in the bitter cold with all my various poles and extensions and made some new arrangements with just hanging feeders. The Blue Jays and finches used to be flummoxed by hanging feeders, but now I see them regularly clinging to the peanut feeders, so I’m not worried about them. It’s really the cardinals and Mourning Doves that will miss that hopper feeder.
The starlings still try to get peanuts from the hanging feeders, but they aren’t at all good at it and seem to give up easily in frustration. I’ll learn how determined they are next week when the wind chill hits 50 below zero.