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raykos
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Starling nuisance
02/13/08 01:37 PM
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Hi all,
My wife & I like almost all wildlife(she doesn't like snakes), and we like to feed the squirrels & birds. One of the things we feed the birds is a suet my wife makes for them; however, the European Starling is really getting on our last nerve! I must admit they are benefical to the lawn when they eat grubs, and when the snow covers the ground, they too, must find something to eat. But darn it, it irritates us when they devour all of the suet in a feeding frenzy! They descend on the suet in "herds", and even fight amongst themselves to get at it.
Now, I've tried different types of upside down suet feeders, and even put plastic plates over top of the upside down feeder so they couldn't land. But those buggers somehow manage to still get at the suet! And when they're around the other birds won't come in. 
So, I'm thinking fine; if we can't keep them out, why not try to lure them away? Does anybody know of anything to:
a. Repel them away from the feeders?
b. Lure them away with some kind of food they can't
resist? And, of course, won't bankrupt us?
Thanks,
Ray
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Bird
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Re: Starling nuisance
[re: raykos]
02/13/08 04:23 PM
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I sometimes wonder if the whole world is over populated with starlings and grackles. We have more grackles than starlings and summer before last, they nested in 4 of my bradford pear trees, so during the winter, I tore all the nests down, then between noise and a grandson's BB gun, I pretty well kept them out of my trees this summer. I think I had 2 nests. But malls around here try noise makers, flashing lights, etc., the City of Dallas put nets over the trees in one city park. Everyone seems to want to be rid of them, but of course, no wants to kill them. So what's the solution? I sure don't know.
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Pat
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Re: Starling nuisance
[re: raykos]
02/14/08 10:36 PM
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Raykos, If the birds you want to feed are smaller than the ones you don't it is relatively easy to discriminate. We have American goldfinches, house finches, purple finches, Caroline Chickadee, and so forth that we like to feed. The feed bill is not inconsequential as we feed black oil sunflower and Niger thistle. Hoards of various blackbirds descend on our back yard like a Biblical plague. We do not wish then harm, wouldn't shoot them (totally impractical anyway) but don't want to feed them as they are capable of feeding themselves. The finches, chickadees, and so forth can feed themselves too but we feed them to be able to have them up close and enjoy watching them.
I selected some chicken wire fencing that is a bit small for most all of the unwanted guests and made a cylinder capped on the ends with circles of material, in effect a big tin can around a feeder. The finches etc. can fly right up and hop right through the mesh but the blackbirds can't.
I also experimented with cutting the perches short to discriminate against larger birds. I bought some feeders that force the bird to hang upside down to feed. Most of the blackbirds either don't get it or won't do it because it is rare to see a blackbird hanging upside down on a trimmed short perch to get a meal but it doesn't bother the little guys.
Before I tried the above I was considering electronic color discrimination and lots of complication. Probably not going to happen and not really needed so far since trying the above.
Pat
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
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raykos
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Re: Starling nuisance
[re: Pat]
02/16/08 01:57 PM
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Hi all,
Bird...I'm a Phildelphia Eagles fan and right now that nasty little guy, who makes you say things you shouldn't, is jumping up and down and shouting something about your response that dealt with that city & birds! No! No! No! Must not say anything! But, seriously, thanks for the response and it's not surprising that the grackles are a problem there also; from what I've read they're another example of us trying to take care of one problem, but only make the situation worse by introducing something else that doesn't belong.
Pat...yes, I understand what you're doing with the chicken wire, but the problem we ran into was the bigger woodpeckers didn't get through to the suet.
Hmmm,
In reply to:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...I was considering electronic color discrimination...
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I, too, was thinking along the same lines, except I was thinking about "silhouette recognition", something like Skinner's pigeon guidance system. Ah Ha, it's a match, activate the squirt gun! Bet that sure would be fun to watch!
But, I've settled on the plastic plate idea. What makes it appealing is it follows the KISS principle, and even when the grackles try to hang on to the cage, they are fluttering so much they cause the plate to flap around and it almost bonks them on the head...love it, when that happens!! The downside is heavy winds; they can actually tear the plate off and if this happens at night, score one for the "bad guys".
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raykos
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Whoops,
Forgot attachment 
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Pat
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Re: Starling nuisance
[re: raykos]
02/17/08 08:36 AM
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There are weight discriminating feeders intended to close off access to food when heavy animal (squirrel) gets on it. Something similar but more delicately balanced would work for us but not you.
There is shape recognition software or you could go to a multi-sensor system and set detection criteria for the fused product. Given your ref to B. F. Skinner's WW II bomb guidance with a 3 pigeon voting system, would you use trained pigeons or a voting system of electronic systems?
I have discovered that opening a door near the feeders and shouting anything will cause a mass escape/flight to safety BUT the finches, chickadees, towhees and such either don't all leave or don't go far and are right back at the feeders in a few seconds whereas most of the blackbirds (grackles, blackbirds, redwings, etc) fly farther and stay away much longer. An automated scarecrow might work for us.
We have pileated woodpeckers that visit once in a while but ignore the feeders. We also have ladder back, red head, flickers, and such but they just about never get on much less eat from a feeder. We have a little chipmunk (my wife calls Alvin) who hangs out under one of the feeders to get seeds dropped by the finches.
If you come up with a really good way to feed suet without feeding the starlings and their close cousins, post it here so we can share the benefit of your cleverness.
Pat
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
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raykos
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Re: Starling nuisance
[re: Pat]
02/17/08 09:20 AM
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From you're earlier post,
In reply to:
...I also experimented with cutting the perches short to discriminate against larger bird...
Somewhere along the line I've seen where a person eleminated the tradional perch and went to a horizontal one. What this person did was to take a 1/4"-1/2" wooden dowel cut off a piece about 1 1/2" and sliced it length wise. Then the sliced piece was glued horizontally to the feeder. The reasoning being, the smaller birds claws would be able to cling to the sliced dowel, whereas the larger birds claws wouldn't be able to wrap around the small half dowel. Haven't tried it myself, just passing the idea along. 
In reply to:
There are weight discriminating feeders intended to close off access to food when heavy animal (squirrel) gets on it.
Yes, I've seen them, but the ones I've seen are a little bit more than what I want to pay. Plus, I'm wondering if they may require dealing with one of those ugly words, "maintenance"; cleaning, oiling, sweeping ice & snow off, etc. Yes, I know I have to do the same thing with some of my other equipment, but as we are all prone to say, "that's different"; doing something you have to do is work, doing something you want to do is fun. As far as the squirrels are concerned, as long as we keep an ear of corn on their feeders they usually leave the bird feeders alone; plus we use the vaseline trick on the bird feeders.
In reply to:
...would you use trained pigeons....
Nope, then I'd have worry about feeding them too!
In reply to:
...There is shape recognition software...
Now that's the way I'd go. Use an inexpensive(one of them good words, a.k.a "cheap") webcam to an old PC running the shape recognition software, whose output would be to an electromecanical device to aim and dispense a water stream, and ta-da, a grackle repeller! 
However, for now, we'll have to stay with the plastic plate and the "grackle repeller" will have to go into the "someday" box; to many other higher priority things to do.
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eccentricfarmer
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Re: Starling nuisance
[re: raykos]
05/06/08 01:05 PM
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Read somewhere that starlings, english sparrows, dandelions, and all rats are imports not native to this continent. They (in my opinion good or bad) can all go to blazes and i am more than willing to speed them on their way. A repressed population of the unwanted birds has allowed the natural ones to be replenished and they can hold their own territory now.
Weeds go to chickens, birds go to the cats, one way or another. All are learning they are not wanted near me.
No fun, change the rules!!!
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egon
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Dandelions were imported as a food source.
They got ltsa good stuff in them.
Egon
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Pat
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Re: Starling nuisance
[re: egon]
05/08/08 03:59 PM
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Pick the dandelions that grow fast after a rain as they are more tender and taste better (not bitter.) Put them in a raw salad or wilt them down adding some salt pork or bacon and some vinegar. Really very tasty.
If you use a regular table knife (doesn't need serrations) turn it flat and shove it under the plant you will cut the tap root and can lift the plant out without damaging the leaves. Pare, wash, and enjoy raw or cooked.
When I was a kid in NW Ohio my mom and one of our neighbors used to take all us kids to the city park (before the days of chemical spray usage there) and we would harvest oodles of dandelions.
Starlings taste a lot like chicken. Waste not want not. We lived by the rule (as far as we could, excluding skunks, rats, and such) that if you kill it you eat it.
Pat
"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"
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eccentricfarmer
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Re: Starling nuisance
[re: Pat]
05/09/08 03:34 PM
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Yep, understand the concept of dandelions, originally they were a great welcome to the diet after a long boring winter and vitamins too. But just too much of a good thing. Tasty or not they just hog up the yard.
Kind of like rocks, there are not good or bad, just in the wrong place.
No fun, change the rules!!!
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Bird
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Re: Starling nuisance
[re: Pat]
05/09/08 08:11 PM
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I've never eaten a Starling, but I've sure had blackbird pie on more than one occasion; i.e., same as chicken pot pie but with blackbird breasts for the meat. You could usually get a dozen or more with one shot with a 12 gauge.
I've never eaten any dandelions either.
And in spite of what I said about wishing I could get rid of the grackles around here, I really don't want to kill anything myself. So a week ago, I was hand watering a couple of spots in the yard and found a baby grackle in the back yard that had undoubtedly fallen from a nest. I really expected it to die, but just left it alone. If you go near it, it'll flutter and hop along the wooden fence across the backyard and yesterday when I was mowing, it even got through the chainlink fence on the side of the yard and went to a neighor's yard. But later it came back. Obviously the adults are feeding it, it's growing, but still isn't developed enough to fly. And I'm amazed that it hasn't either died or been killed.
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eccentricfarmer
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Re: Starling nuisance
[re: Bird]
05/10/08 02:58 PM
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Try the dandylions. Tasty mixed in a boring salad. Just different and is that not what we are all about?
Worked for a person who had cattle and such but did not want to see them in food and preferred to buy pre made meals so did not have to deal with the prospect of eating something off the farm. Blood pressure sky high, other health problems. Has not eaten some of the farm stuff and the use of meds for problems has gone down significantly. Just does not count any more to see which has gone away for a bit.
No fun, change the rules!!!
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Bird
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Re: Starling nuisance
[re: Bird]
05/10/08 05:46 PM
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Well, I guess I spoke too soon. After a week of that little grackle growing and seeming to do just fine, I went out a few minutes ago and found it dead. I didn't see any visible signs of injury, so I don't know why it would have died after a week.
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eccentricfarmer
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Re: Starling nuisance
[re: Bird]
05/13/08 09:38 AM
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Had a litter of poodle puppies. One was not doing to well, but not to bad either. Turned out it had no exit for waste food. Still lasted 4 days. Nature is nature. I think it is called Failure to thrive on the farm FTT.
No fun, change the rules!!!
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