Starlings

[Mealworm]

Hi everybody

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all. Can anyone help? My bird table is doing rather nicely with a large selection of tits, robins, thrushes, blackbirds and even a great spotted woodpecker visiting. The two squirrils I tolerate! Recently I'm being mobbed by a thuggish gang of starlings who proceed to eat EVERYTHING in site. Any ideas how I can politely persuade them to ship out and go somewhere else?

[storye_book]

my guess is that there would be several possibilities, but none of them perfect - here's a few -

CAGE OR ROOF
if you look through the various catalogues/websites of wild bird food companies, you'll see bird tables with roofs that you can raise or lower to allow or exclude the bigger birds. the problem with that is that you'd probably exclude the blackbird and woody along with the starlings. similarly, the ones with caged sides appear to exclude pigeons, but if they let blackbirds in, then they would not keep starlings out.

HANGING FEEDERS WITH PERCHES (and cages)
starlings are excluded from most of these unless you fit a tray on the bottom. you'd keep the woodpeckers but lose the blackbirds.

LOTS OF DIFFERENT FEEDERS
this is my solution, which i'm happy with so far. i put out the greatest variety of feeders (bought or home-made) that i can manage. there always seems to be some food left somewhere, because the starlings can't get it all. the blackbirds can also get the food that's dropped from the hanging feeders. somehow it seems to work out.

FEEDING AWAY
feeding away works with squirrels, so long as their hopper is kept topped up. so i guess that that should work with starlings as well? i don't know what their favourite food would be - you want something cheap that you can feed in bulk - try stale, soaked bread??

anyone else got a better solution? it would be interesting to see what else works.

good luck, mealworm.

[georgie]

Hello everyone,

It's been interesting reading the messages (except that ad for whatever it was - car radios or something?), and Happy New Year to you all.

Well I quite like starlings and enjoy seeing them, because they are a dwindling species, believe it or not! (and without them we wouldn't see that incredible footage that has been on telly quite a lot this year of them roosting in the Severn Estuary.) In my garden they descend like vultures if they see food but they remain only for a few minutes and then it's safe to go out with other stuff for the more dainty eaters.

Anyway if I were you Mealworm I would tolerate the starlings and take to persecuting the squirrels instead! :) My avian bugbear still has to be feral pigeons - I now have one (nicknamed 'the humming bird' that can precariously balance and feed at the seed feeders for what seems ages).

I like the idea suggested of putting out loads of cheaper food such as soaked bread but in my experience the starlings end up mainly chucking that around while they search manically for the goodies - and in my experience their very favourite has to be mealworms, either live or dried.
I assume you are a mealworm fan?? and certainly you can buy feeders for these that can exclude starlings.
Maybe also you could put out some of the food in the open for all the birds to get, and the rest (as also suggested by Story booke, sorry if I've got the name wrong) within enclosed feeders for the smaller birds.

I hope you come up with an answer,

Cheers,

Georgie

[Mealworm]

Thanks Storey book and georgie. Actually it may come as a surprise but I actually do like the starlings:) They amuse me with their sense of deviency and I hadn't thought until you mentioned it georgie that they are not so common now. I have a mature ash tree at the bottom of my garden and a few years ago during the winter months the tree was laden with starlings in the late afternoon. The noise was incredible then suddenly they were off (presumably heading towards a roost in Birmingham). I had to lower the height of the tree for safety reasons and lost the birds. They are obviously making a comeback. They are beautiful and don't they know it! I just wish they wouldn't clear me out (especially mealworms) in one sitting. I am going away for a few days so they will be left with fat cakes and other goodies but I think I will try putting out bread etc in other parts of the garden, perhaps close to the big tree. Let's hope this works unless they have developed a taste for chiabatta and foccacia being urban birds.

The squirrels don/t hassle me. Every year there is a battle between them and the magpie pair as to who has residency in the ash tree. Last year the squirrels won and evicted the magpies. This year I suspect it will be the turn of the birds. I've found that if I place peanuts, dog biscuits etc in a bowl on a wall the rodents are happy and leave the bird tables alone.

Incidently, has anyone heard of a ring ouzle spotted in the west midlands? We have had a blackbird type (although much slimmer in shape) with perfect white cheek and throat patches. The assumption was that he was a blackbird with mutations but even my neighbour is convinced he is a ring ouzle after looking it up. I know I know they are shy, returing, live in hill sides etc. I must try and get a photo of him and post it here.

Take care

[storye_book]

Incidently, has anyone heard of a ring ouzle spotted in the west midlands? We have had a blackbird type (although much slimmer in shape) with perfect white cheek and throat patches. The assumption was that he was a blackbird with mutations but even my neighbour is convinced he is a ring ouzle after looking it up. I know I know they are shy, returing, live in hill sides etc. I must try and get a photo of him and post it here.


hi mealworm and georgie.

i'm glad you found my suggestions useful in part, though i agree with georgie that if you leave starlings a choice/surplus of food, they will chuck some of it about. re the comment about mealworms: yes i agree that starlings will pig most of the mealworms - tho starlings are disturbed easily, which often means that the braver robins etc get some. good luck with your experiments, mealworm.

re the ring ouzel - maybe this anecdote will help a little. having rubbish eyesight and heavy old bins, i've always had to rely mostly on jizz, location and sound for bird i.d. it ought to be a limitation, but actually it forces extra opportunities to i.d. birds. back in the seventies, on the farm, i had a view from my window onto about half a mile of sloping pasture, near the east coast. we got plenty of migrants, and i got good views of redwings, fieldfares and peewits (green plovers) in spring/autumn. so one spring i was in my garden, with pasture all around, and i had a rough idea what was about. but there was suddenly a strange cry, and i knew there was something i'd never seen/heard before. i rushed in and leant the heavy old 20 x 50's on the windowsill and there was a ring ouzel, clear as day, among the usual stuff on the field. i went straight to the old shepherd next door. local farm workers in those days took an interest in wildlife, and they knew where everything lived, what it ate and so on. this guy was one of the last with the old east kent dialect.

"arr that ain't no ring ousel we got two or three old blaaackbirds round 'ere and they be paaartly albino it'll be on o' they."

and he always insisted (though he hadn't seen it) that no way could i have seen a ring ouzel. but it was the strange bird call that clinched it for me. also its location: you just don't get blackbirds out there on the pasture among redwings, fieldfares, crows and peewits. those guys work together, but not with blackbirds. however it's known that ring ouzels are often found in that type of situation/location, at that time of year.

to be honest, i no longer remember the sound of the bird call. but i remember the appearance of the ring marking, which was a clearly defined half-moon half-necklace across the breast. this picture http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.mullbirds.com/ring-ouzel-2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.mullbirds.com/G2-24.html&h=409&w=650&sz=18&hl=en&start=10&tbnid=YNNqkS7kdP9TWM:&tbnh=86&tbnw=137&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2522ring%2Bouzel%2522%26svnum%3D10%2 6hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DX is very much like the one i saw. it had no white cheek and throat patches. i'm puzzled that you don't describe the necklace as in this picture, but maybe i'm just quibbling over words? if you saw something different from this picture, i'm guessing that you saw one of those partly albino blackbirds, which are said to be quite common.

all the best

hope this helps.

[Mealworm]

Storey book - what have you started? We now have a lively debate at home now as to whether 'patches' as we called him, matches the photo. He could well be an albino blackbird although the body shape is VERY similar to the bird in the photo link. Neighbours will be posted as lookouts while I'm away from tomorrow. Thanks for your advice so far - much appreciated and will post on my return later this month.

[storye_book]

hi mealworm - you've made me curious now about the bird-sound i heard all those years ago - the one that made me look for the ring ouzel. i vaguely remember telling the shepherd that it sounded like a child's cry - or did i? i'll look it up and come back to you on that. but one thing i'm sure of - it was nothing like a blackbird's song and nothing like the blackbird's evening clatter. if your bird makes a sound, maybe that will solve your mystery.

[storye_book]

hi mealworm

i found an online recording of the ring ouzel for you - on
http://www.rspb.org.uk/birds/guide/r/ringouzel/gallery.asp

it sounds nothing like a child's cry - but at least it doesn't sound like a blackbird - so at least you'll know what you've got if it makes a sound.

good luck

[Mealworm]

Thanks storye book - must download Flash Player 8 first and give it a go.

[PiratesAhoy!]

Hi guys,

We tend to get large starling invasions - sometimes 200 or more birds in
one go! In our garden, we started off small - just a few hanging feeders, but as more birds came in, more feeders had to be put up. Most of them take care of themselves though.

The best advice would be to have a few feeding areas - some on the ground, provided there's a clear area where the birds can see all around, and some on tables or hanging feeders. If you have room that is.

Our starlings, or 'pirates' as we like to call them as they tend to pillage or plunder rather than just visit, are a source of great amusement, so we don't mind them being around - but if the other birds want to get some chance of grabbing some food, we have to keep the starlings distracted.

To do this, I generally make some starling mix, which consists of ground up peanuts (done in a hand-held blender), plus some raisins, cheese and muesli. I find that the Jordan's Natural muesli is a good mix, as it doesn't contain large nuts or banana slices and things. Plus, there's no added salt or sugar. The starlings absolutely love this, and despite me putting out 2 litres of it per day, it's all gone by nightfall, or sometimes by lunchtime!

Other treats include suet cakes made with mostly ground up peanuts and a little muesli, and snacks of dried or live mealworms in the breeding season.

This keeps them occupied on the table and the ground areas, while the other birds have their own areas to eat from. We also feed the blackbirds with the raisins, so keeping the two of them separated is sometimes a challenge!

If you'd like to see just how fascinating and amusing the starlings can be, particularly in a group, check out some of my videos, at http://www.youtube.com/piratesahoy - particularly this one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnp_2weg3FQ). Juveniles are so funny ;)

[storye_book]

hi piratesahoy!

i loved your videos on youtube - i recommend them to other forum members - especially the one called 'what do you do, in the bath?'

[Mealworm]

Cheers PiratesAhoy

I've come to the conclusion that feeding them in a separate area is a good idea. I have a big garden and one section (which I call my 'allotment' is well away from the general feeding area so will be making offerings in that section. It is near to a big ash tree where the starlings use to congregate some years ago before they flew off to the roosts in the evening so maybe this will work. I've also just purchased a live food feeder with a guard so maybe that will be enough to discourage them there.

Take care