We have red wing blackbirds in town this winter, never have seen them here before as they normally are country field birds, not woods birds. Not just a few, either. They ran off all the starlings, which is a good thing, but there is a flock of probably 500 red-wings, and they chow down all the bird seed in short order and chase off the smaller birds. Almost as bad as the starlings. If we still have snow next week I'm going to the feed store as soon as we can get out (it's snowing again) and get some chicken feed to put on the ground away from the feeders. Hopefully that will draw them away and the smaller birds can eat in peace, not to mention saving me the cost of all that black oil sunflower seed.

the chicken feed has worked for me i have an old aluminun large cooking sheet that i put under a tree 30 foot from the feeders. the starlings and doves and red wing blackbirds go there first and most fill up there but some are still sneaking in to get at my feeders. I have tried several different models of cage geeders that help a lot to keep out the bigger birds. one type is a wire cage around the feeder with small spacings so the big birds can't get in and the other is dowels on end spaced close enough together so the the little birds can fly thru but the big ones can not. This fall here all the feeds including cracked corn and chicken feed have been going up in price. still a lot cheaper than bird seed but 3 to 4 dollars more a sack than it was.

another thing that has helped is that i save all the mesh bags that oranges and tangerines and lemons and even some onion sacks. ones with a fine mesh i put hulled sunflower or safflower seeds in and bigger mesh homemade suet mix with chopped nuts and cracked corn. and even a leftover nyger sock that i put the sunflower chips or fine chopped nut in and hang them. so far the hanging birds use them but the starlings and red wing blackbirds have not adapted to them.

I also use the mesh bags. The blackbirds and grackles empty those in no time, I think they learned from the finches.

For three days last week a large flock of Red Wings turned over the leaves in my back yard. There were so many of them that it looked as if the ground were moving with all the leaves being tossed. They never touched my feeders or the suet. This was the first time I've ever noticed them up here on the ridge. Normally they are down by the creek about a half mile away.

Two more firsts this winter. In late January there was a Towhee on my BOSS feeder. Saw it only once. If it came back I missed it. Last year I saw one under the Suet feeder picking up pieces but this is the first I've ever seen on the feeder. 20 years ago they were all over the place but now that there are no empty lots left I very seldom see any.
There just aren't enough woods left for them.

Another first I could do without, Grackles. Never had them before and they will empty out a feeder amazingly fast. Wish they would move on.