The battle continues

Well, the battle of the bird feeders continues.

The squirrel seems to be fairly well under control, at least for the time being, but now it's starlings.

I'm not fond of starlings to start with, and they're both bullies that scare other birds away and awful feeder hogs. I've been looking around for advice on line, and it seems to run to "don't put out things they like to eat," with a sidebar of "use starling-resistant feeders."

I want to encourage the robins and mockingbirds--if there are any mockingbirds in the neighborhood--so I was putting out pears and grapes. Gobbled up by the starlings, though they don't seem as fond of apples as of pears and grapes.

Suet--forget about it, unless you get one of the feeders that makes the bird hang onto the bottom--starlings aren't supposed to be able to deal with those, although I ran across a "hint" where someone had to hang things from the cross bars of one of those upside-down bottom-feeding suet feeders to keep the starlings off.

Apparently my options are (1) replace my sunflower seed with safflower seed (cardinals will eat it, starlings probably won't), (2) get a weight-adjustable feeder that will accept cardinals and smaller birds, but closes when starlings land, (3) get an upside-down bottom-feeder suet holder, (4) get a feeder with a dome baffle (starlings don't like to be under things), (5) get small tippy feeders that starlings can't hold onto.

I was putting out bread crumbs, and I've seen several of the finches and sparrows land in the tray this evening and look disappointed that they're not there, but one starling can go through an entire piece of bread in about 15 minutes (as opposed to half a piece a day pre-starlings).