Ideas To Deter Crows But Not Smaller Birds

[shivvy]

I am currently being innundated with crows! Even my 2 very determined terriers are a bit nervous of going out when there is an invasion!
So I'm looking for ideas to deter them without scaring off the smaller birds. I know that it is my own fault because my feeders are always being topped up so naturally enough they are feeding from them. And I don't mind the odd crow, but at this time of year they are obviously looking for a good source of food for their young (who are also mahoosive lol!) and I don't want to encourage them to see this as somewhere to return to on an ongoing basis.
In previous years I have left the feeders empty for a week or two and they aren't long going elsewhere, but I'm wondering if I can do something else.
My google searching suggests the best options are a bird of prey kite, or anything reflective. But I think the dummy bird of prey would scare all birds? And I have never seen a hanging CD scare any bird.
So what does anyone else do?
Thanks.
PS - As mentioned, I have already googled for ideas so I'm looking for personal experience of what works rather than a googled link please.

[Canary42]

I had a similar problem with my bird table and a set of voracious pigeons - I experimented with various roof options until I got one they were unable to negotiate under (but it's amusing watching them try).

I'm not sure whether this is any help to you - can you restrict access to the larger birds in any way ? I believe you can get feeders with an outer cage, but presumably you've come across these in your Google research.

Sorry I can't be more positive, but at least my entry will bump you back to the top of latest posts ;-)

[woofgang]

my bird feeders are made from two wire hanging basket frames cable tied together to make a globe. with a mesh feeder tray inside. they are hung up from the chains that you get with the baskets. The baskets have various sized meshes to allow different sizes of birds to feed and to exclude the bigger birds. Inexpensive and it works.

[shivvy]

Thanks Canary and woofgang for your great answers.
I really am my own worst enemy because although some of my feeders have cage type set ups around them, not all do so the crows are still attracted. And while they are there they have a go at anything containing food which includes attacking and swinging on the crow-proof ones lol!

[Maydup]

What do you feed your birds with shivvy?

[woofgang]

shivvy the other thing I do is I only put a tiny bit of food out at a time....literally a couple of teaspoonfuls in each feeder.

[shivvy]

Maydup - I feed peanuts, mixed seed, sunflower seed, niger seed, fat balls, suet blocks and kitchen scraps. I'm out in the middle of the countryside and I go through a mountain of food and my feeders are big - 12 ports in some of them. So woofgang a couple of teaspoons wouldnt cover the bottom of most of them. When the goldfinch come I could get over 20 at one time!
I get so much joy from watching every bird visit and to be honest I don't mind the 'thug' crows coming when I'm fit to chase them but I'm going in for surgery next week and it would be hard to see them eating everything and me not being able to put a stop to the mayhem!

[Maydup]

You could try removing the fat balls and suet blocks for a while. They are so loved by the crows and easy for them to access. Keep to the seeds and use the cage feeders and they will not see it as an easy free lunch.

[lankeela]

Even though I used to sell it I still don't know why people buy food to feed wild birds. If there was a drought or real shortage of food I could understand it, but surely the bird population correlates to the amount of food available, so less food = less birds being born. What do you think they eat if you don't feed them?

[Cloverjo]

I feed birds because I want to see them in my garden, especially goldfinches. I’ve only got crows, magpies, pigeons and seagulls. I think they’re putting the little ones off.

[shivvy]

lankeela - if i didn't feed them they would forage for food elsewhere. Life would be tougher for them and as many garden birds are in decline (as you say, less food = less birds) I'm happy to feed them. Like Cloverjo I also love seeing them in my garden especially at this time of the year when the parent birds are feeding their young and I can see how hard they work to ferry food to their hungry chicks.
Unlike you Cloverjo, I'm lucky to have a big variety of garden visitors - great, blue, and coal tits, house and tree sparrows, greenfinch, goldfinch and chaffinch, robins, dunnock, wrens, blackbirds. And its still a treat to spot goldcrest, treecreepers, redpolls and bullfinch which arent so common round here.

[hellywelly4]

I put sunflower hearts out and they seem to attract quite a good variety of birds. I've stopped putting out fat balls and coconut halves with fat in as, like you say, the big birds eat them in a very short time. I'm hoping they will have forgotten them when I put them out again.
I only fill the feeders a short way up, even though they are supposed to be squirrel-proof as I've seen the squirrels manipulate the feeders and 'lean' over from one to the other so they can get access, and they just empty them so quickly.
It is a battle, but so well worth it, and I like to feel I'm doing my bit to help.
Good luck - keep persevering and hope your surgery goes well.

[Ellipsis]

We don't have a birdfeeder but we do have a fussy cat. We end up throwing his uneaten, stale cat food onto the lawn and giving him fresh. The cat food attracts crows, blackbirds, thrushes etc. They're lovely to watch.

So one idea would be to put other food out for the crows that kept them away from the birdfeeder ... just putting this out there as an idea, it may be completely stupid!

[shivvy]

Thanks for the well wishes hellywelly. And we also have some thieving squirrels but they never steal too much and I sometimes throw some peanuts in the undergrowth round the base of the trees for them.

Ellipsis - I don't think that is a silly idea at all because I sometimes throw old slices of bread into the neighbouring field!