mine was a plastic tube feeder with plastic perches about 1 1/2 inches long and almost any of the birds were perching on it. I took a hack saw and cut the perches off so they were just over 1/2 inch long. it stopped all the birds except the siskins and finches from perching. Last fall a hungry bear tore the feeder down and broke it, I'll have to buy another next spring. and hang it higher.

Hi, sorry, a little late to the party. I just moved to CO and this is my first winter here, used to live in MI. In MI, I rarely saw a finch in the winter. Here is CO, I have a lot of finches (red right now but some were yellow in the fall). I also get titmice (titmouses?), chickadees, downy woodpeckers, and flickers on a daily basis. Anyway, I have both black oilers in a tube and suet basket. The finches, titmice, and chickadees seem to like the suet. They eat both the seed and the suet, but the suet is what attracted them in the first place.

>> No doubt it was a PF but I am still unsure of what was happening. Anybody else experience similar behavior??I'm pretty sure, this behaviour for this time of the year in your area could have been a courtship call, purple finches make totally different sounds, I got to see and hear this last year, I'll never forget this weird incident! Konrad

I haven't seen house finches try to use hummer feeders here. I use to have that problem too Rachel concerning the thisle feeders. I'd fill them up waiting for the goldfinches to find them. When they would I'd get to enjoy them for a few days until the house finches would take over. I got sick of that so I bough some of those upside down thisle feeders. They work great, the goldfinches have no problems using them. I also get indigo buntings, pine siskins, and carolina chickadees. But not a single house finch. I don't think they can hang upside down.