gma asked:
I have bird feeders and love to watch all the birds. I don’t mind pigeons, but they scare the hummingbirds away. The pigeons also seem to be multiplying. I have fed birds for years, this is the first time I’ve had pigeon problems.
Can anyone help?
I have bird feeders and love to watch all the birds. I don’t mind pigeons, but they scare the hummingbirds away. The pigeons also seem to be multiplying. I have fed birds for years, this is the first time I’ve had pigeon problems.
Can anyone help?
You could put a wire cover over the feeders with gaps big enough for the smaller birds but not pigeons. (Field wire I think is what its called)
buy a special hummingbird feeder. These are filled with a red liquid and the hummingbird has to fly in place to **** out the liquid. A pigeon could never do this. By the way, some think that pigeons are like flying rats.
I used to have a bird feeder that had a weighted perch. Only certain birds were light enough, if a heavier bird got on the perch it would close the lid as it landed and the food was not accessable.
Get a bird feed cage with small holes and put it on your bird feeder. I worked for my grand-parents.
You need an exclusionary feeder – a feeder that excludes squirrels and birds over a certain size/weight. It is commonly referred to as a “squirrel proof” feeder, but also works for larger birds, like pigeons, crows, grackles, etc.
Some work by weight – if anything heavy lands on it, the feeding holes close and the bird can not get to the food. Some work by size – the feeder is encased in a wire frame, and the wire is has a mesh that is too small for large birds and squirrels to enter.
You can see both types here:
Pigeons deserve to be fed just like the other birds, they don’t aim to scare the smaller birds, they would not harm them.
I think if you try putting seed on a tray on the ground you’ll find the pigeon prefer eating from there opposed to the feeders, if you slowly move this away from the feeders say 1m a day then the smaller birds are free to eat with no fear and the pigeons are still getting fed.
I’ve never seen pigeons bother my feeders. Cowbirds however bothered all of the birds & feeders including my hummingbirds. Pigeons are ground feeders, try spreading cracked corn on the ground under the feeders and they would prefer to eat there instead of up on a feed. I actually have many Mourning Doves (people mistake them for pigeons)that come around and are ground fed under my feeders and none of the other birds are bothered by it. Cracked corn is fairly cheap at the feed mill.