How to frustrate large "bully birds" taking over your feeder

Most large “bully” birds, such as Crows and Grackles, can be discouraged by using a weight-sensitive feeder.  (We use two at our house.) Some “squirrel-resistant” birdfeeders can adjust. So when anything heavier than a few ounces sits in front of a seed port, the port closes. (Most “good” birds weigh less than 2 ounces.) Often, the feeder’s “tipping point” can be adjusted. If, for instance, you like Blue Jays – which weigh about 5 or 6 ounces, but don’t want Grackles, which are about 8 ounces you can set the tipping point at 7 oz. to exclude one species but not the other.

White-wing Doves

Another tip: Large birds (White-wing Doves come to mind) can be discouraged with a tube-type feeder. The perches should be no longer than 2 inches [1.5 inches is better]. That's because bigger birds can't sit on the small perch - they fall off and eventually give up!

 

“Really…how does a bag of chemicals know the difference?”     Be very, very wary of claims of certain chemical/fertilizers that say they “kill weeds, but not your grass”. Bulls**t!  The problem is that there’s absolutely no universal definition of a “weed”, unlike a “tree”, ”shrub” or “flower”. In plain language, absolutely nobody can tell you definitively what a "weed" is.  Certainly not a bag of fertilizer.

   A weed could actually be any plant that’s growing where you don’t want it to grow…such as a rose growing in your driveway. Each of us knows what a "weed" is to us, but That's probably different from you neighbor's definition. In my Landscape Architecture work, I’ve always wondered how a chemical can tell the difference between what you want and don’t want.