For the last several years a large flock of grackles has descended on our neighborhood just as the acorns ripen. They scour the oaks collecting nuts and dropping lots of them on our rooftops. It’s like living under a daily hailstorm what with all the banging and rolling.
This year the oaks did not produce many acorns. The squirrels snatched most of them for their winter stash, and the chipmunks vacuumed up anything that dropped to the ground. By the time the grackles arrived, it was slim pickings. I hoped they would move on, but they were hungry from their travels and decided my birdfeeders would make a nice consolation prize. The freeloaders emptied them in a day.
My feeders were buzzing with other bird activity, so I really didn’t want to take them down. However, the grackles were ravenous, and my pocketbook was not going to keep up. I hid everything in the garage except for one peanut feeder and a suet dough cake. Grackles are not particularly graceful birds (hence the acorn barrage on the roof) but they still tried to hang from that peanut feeder. Eventually they emptied that too.
I got tough and didn’t put out any new seed. After several days I decided the coast was clear. I filled a hanging feeder with sunflower seeds and stuck it outside. Within minutes the air was filled with the squeaks and squawks of the band of marauders. Good grief, did they have cameras on me or something?
Our little game continued for most of August. I think they finally found better treasure elsewhere because I haven’t seen or heard a grackle in almost 10 days. Now if I could just do something about that pesky family of House Sparrows…