Pigeons still around - but not so fat!

It's been a couple of weeks since I pigeon-proofed my feeders and bird tables, and generally it seems to have worked in at least stopping the pigeons eating everything and leaving nothing for the smaller birds - but they are still hanging around in large numbers, and still attempting to get into the feeders and onto the tables! Are they too stupid to realise they can't, or too clever and know that persistence will pay off in the end? As more and more gather I start to feel I'm in Hitchcock's "The Birds" and that they'll eventually knock over the feed tables by sheer weight of numbers!

One definite benefit has been not having to constantly refill feeders and tables on a slightly more than daily basis, now it's a couple of times a week, which shows just how much the pigeons were taking. I was originally worried I was also excluding blackbirds but have now seen them feeding on the tables regularly. I'm going to invest in a proper ground feeder sanctuary from the RSPB though, not sure the upturned hanging baskets are quite accessible enough for birds their size - fine if you want to feed the sparrow-sized birds, though.

The one food item I am having to keep in constant supply is any fat treat (suet nibbles, fat balls, suet cakes, whatever) - it's that time of year when they're all either breeding or raising chicks and they all need that extra energy boost. The starlings are keenest on the nibbles in the peanut feeder and squabble over them, but just lately the fat balls and suet cake have been graced by several jackdaws and a large rook who has managed to find a suitable place on the tree to grasp while he rips chunks of fat off (usually with the jackdaws hanging about below to catch anything he drops). Is it wrong of me to try keeping the pigeons away while being happy to watch a rook eating me out of house and home? He's an impressive sight, which the pigeons are not, so that's my justification!

Meanwhile, one more visitor may be suffering due to the pigeon-proofing, might let him have a few loose peanuts by way of compensation...

Stop the Pigeons!



The "Enemy"

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate pigeons. I don't especially like them, but I don't hate them. What I do hate is that recently they've been arriving in my garden in bigger and bigger numbers, sometimes a dozen or more, and have been eating all the food on my bird tables (standing and hanging), one of my seed feeders, and anything I put on the ground. Now, I'm of the view that with pigeons being omnivirous scavengers (basically rats with wings) they have more than enough food sources without my paying good money on seed that they're going to wolf down in short order. At the same time they're also depriving every other garden bird of food, either because it's gone before they can get to it, or because the pigeons bully the other birds and scare them off!

The solution? Pigeon proof my tables and feeders! First, I got some suitable sized mesh from Homebase with holes big enough to allow most smaller birds through but exclude pigeons. I then fixed this round both my standing tables, in one case completely round, and for the second leaving larger gaps at the corners (as I was concerned that blackbirds and thrushes might struggle to get in). The pigeons are now very confused and still try to land on the table (and fail). I've seen other birds use them quite happily (including starlings) and I haven't had to replenish the food anything like so often!

 

A pigeon baffled by the Meripac's cage



Unsure about how to attach mesh to my hanging table, I instead searched for a pre-caged table to replace it, similar to one I'd seen at Center Parcs. I chose the Meripac table and sanctuary which I ordered from Junglegold (and which arrived the next day!). A bit of a hassle to put together as an essential pre-drilled hole hadn't actually been pre-drilled, but now it's complete it looks fine. The only problem is that the pigeons still try to get in and unbalance the table, spilling all the water out of the dedicated water compartment! May leave it dry and use it for more seed - the coal tits in particular seem to like it a lot, and since the idea was to help the smaller birds get a bigger share of the food that's a definite result.

Next I turned my attention to ground feeding birds, and how to protect their food from the ravenous grey horde. There are ground-feeder sanctuaries available (the RSPB do one) but at around £20 a time I wanted to see if there was a cheaper alternative - and I may have found one. I bought two large wire baskets from Homebase which are meant to be used as hanging flower baskets, but the holes looked about the right size to me - and at £2.48 each (on a 20% off day) they were cheap enough to try and throw away if they failed. I've removed the chains and held them down with netting pegs, and they seem to be working fine. I've seen robins and dunnocks feeding happily inside, and seen at least one blackbird able to get their head far enough in to grab something, which the pigeons are unable to do as long as I keep the food in the centre. In one (pictured) I also used the mesh tray from the abadoned hanging table to keep the food off the grass. I'll keep monitoring how they go and whether they get much use, but so far so good.

Finally, I took the seed tray off my smaller seed feeder, and now the pigeons (or more usually for this one, doves) can't perch on it and empty the feeder in under a day! I've left the one on my nyjer seed feeder, which I've sometimes seen a dove on, but the seed level isn't going down very fast so I guess they don't eat that much, and the tray is useful to catch the tiny seeds for the goldfinches.

With a bit of luck now everything is pigeon-proofed, I won't need to refill every feeder quite so often (saving me money), and there'll be plenty for the smaller birds so I get to see them rather than a dozen fat pigeons. Plus. while they get used to the idea, watching the pigeons attempt to get at the food they know is there is highly amusing. Probably not the right attitude for a member of the RSPB, but there it is.