Topic: Nuisance Jackdaws

[fitzsie]

At least I think they are jackdaws. We've moved to a house which backs onto a railway line, near the edge of town.  I've put up a couple of bird stations which offers suet balls/blocks as well as a variety of seeds.
The railways line seems to have created a run as we often see blue tits, goldfinches, blackbirds and one pheasant moving up and down the row of houses.
The problem I am finding are these jackdaws, which if given the chance will steal any suet ball they can grab and have even caught themn grabbing hold of one of the seed feeders and shake it so that the seed falls to the ground !
I have to secure all the feeders to stop them being taken off the bird station and wind some wire around the birdstand to prevent them being able to stand on the feeders !!
Does anyone else have these bullies and if so how do they deal with them?

[Nigel B]

Oh good fun Fitzsie....!!

Try and outwit them...
For one, they aren't very good at hanging upside-down for long, so a half-coconut or tennis ball filled with food but hung upside-down will give them a hard time while letting the smaller birds feed easily..
I sometimes wish I had that kind of a problem to solve... Instead its stealth-moles and rabbits here....
Good luck! :-)

[jesssands]

Here is an example of a feeder they cant get into.. they also do similar ones for fat balls too.
Bit expencive on here but prob get them better priced in wilkos or ebay.
We have rooks, the ones with the stone coloured beak. They nested in next doors chimney pot last year. They'll not be doing that again. We both had a new roof and they are now capped off.
We feed our birds on the window sill. The angle of it, the big birds cant land, they too clumsy. Blackbirds are the biggest.

http://shopping.rspb.org.uk/bird-food-and-feeding/bird-feeders/rspb-premium-nut-feeder-guardian-small.html

[Digeroo]

I put food amongst the branches of the forsythia, the bigger birds do not seem to be able to negotiate it.  Otherwise the rooks and jackdaws just hoover up everything within a few minutes.

[GREGME]

didn't think jackdaws had bad reputation usually - they are a small crow with a greyish neck- not often agressive usually but the late winter has perhaps meant they are relying on other food

[Robert_Brenchley]

They're not particularly aggressive but I've seen them kill a sick pigeon. It was this time of year and they were probably hungry.

[Unwashed]

Jackdaws are probably my favorite birds.  I'm fortunate enough to have a roost a few hundred yards from my house, and I really love to hear them and watch their evening flights - I find their call really evocative and joyful.  Jackdaws pair for life, and if you watch you'll see that they virtually always fly together as pairs - if people were as loving the world would be a happier place. 

I find them to be quite shy birds.  They would rarely land on the allotment if anyone was about, and they will visit the garden sometimes but again they're very shy, and they don't seem to be very agile on the feeders, though they will sometimes have a bit of a go.  They'll also try for a few cherries from my cherry tree but they're not particularly good at that either.

Enjoy them.

[pumkinlover]

Fitzsie- just watch them walking about- they are so comical. I just love them. buy a special bird feeder if it gets a bit expensive on fat balls but learn to love them, or tell them to come to Chesterfield or Newbury where the Jackdaw lovers reside!