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Post by kleftiwallah on May 1, 2020 20:16:24 GMT
Good evening everyone,
I suppose it's the nature of starlings but does anyone have a method of allowing the great tits nesting in our garden to get a look in at the feeders? I can throw mealworms onto the lawn and the starlings are there like a shot, but I would like to help the great tit.
Cheers, Tony.
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Post by Tringa on May 2, 2020 6:34:12 GMT
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Post by kleftiwallah on May 2, 2020 9:48:50 GMT
Good morning Triga Dave, Marvelous idea. I'll scuttle to the shed and dig out the stainless steel filler rods!
Thanks and Cheers, Tony
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Post by Psamathe on May 2, 2020 11:10:47 GMT
I use a squirrel case round one of my feeders. Young starlings managed to squeeze in (always worried me about the "frog in a bottle" but they always managed to get out) but it kept the majority out.
But I've only recently re-started bird feeding as previously it got out of hand with quite un-natural population sizes of some species entirely due to the amount of food I was providing. So I stopped on the basis I'm rural, in countryside so there should be senough natural food for natural population levels (provided I have enough hedgerow, plants, etc.).
Ian
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Post by Psamathe on May 2, 2020 11:14:04 GMT
.... I can throw mealworms onto the lawn and the starlings are there like a shot, but I would like to help the great tit.
Cheers, Tony.
If providing dried mealworms, be careful once young hatch. I'm not a bird expert but I was told that hatched young in their nests cannot get to water to drink so depend on fluids in their food (juicy caterpillars, etc.). So provide dried mealworms (which birds love) and hatchlings will be fed dried mealworms and wont get enough fluids (and no fluids in dried mealworms!) and can suffer bad dehydration ... But I'm not a bird expert so would welcome feedback on what I've heard. Ian |
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Post by accipiter on May 2, 2020 16:06:38 GMT
Dried mealworms are ok as long as their soaked overnight, but I’m using seed impregnated fats balls which I place in feeders while placing one under cover on the ground, since our starlings don’t bother with those being too preoccupied on the feeders. This way it also leaves plenty of time for the blue and great tits to feed in-between the starling visits; plus the fat ball placed on the ground keeps the ground feeders happy.
Incidentally, I was breaking the fat balls up that I placed on the ground but leaving then intact is far better since they last longer that way.
Alan
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Post by kleftiwallah on May 3, 2020 9:04:51 GMT
I only serve up live wigglers to MY birds!
I have made a tit only feeding station (but always leave mealworms on the lawn for the starlings) this has led me to a queary. The great tits are feeding their young just about exclusively mealworms, are the chickes getting all the "essential vitamins and minerals" from such an apparently restricted diet?
Cheers, Tony.
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