not really, unless it gets ugly...even the usda sanctions poisoning starlings in certain instances....here's a snippet of a press report, The use of this chemical is only effective during the winter months when large flocks consistently feed in one location. During the spring, summer and fall months, the birds are less likely to congregate in large numbers. During these months, the birds feed throughout the city, as well as local fields on grain and insects, making treatment applications impossible. its best to just wait them out in the winter...the smaller birds all know that there's a pecking order at the feeder and they will wait their turn

It took the birds 6 months to find my nyjer feeder when I first put it out. When they finally found it, the goldfinches attracted other birds to my other feeders. I had them hanging off the bottom of our seldom-used 2nd story deck, so they were semi-shaded. I also made a "bird bath" out of a boot tray - it was less than an inch deep and a good 2' long and about 16" wide. It was black, so I wouldn't put something like that out in the sun. I changed the water and scrubbed it out every day, and "sterilized" with vinegar (and rinsed and scrubbed again) about once a week. I sterilized the scrub brush in a bucket of bleach water overnight before sterilizing the "bird bath" the next day, so that the brush was fresh and clean for the post-vinegar-bath scrubbing. So - the night before, on cleaning day - I dump and scrub the bird bath; then fill it with vinegar; put the brush in the bleach water. Next morning, dump the bleach water and the vinegar thoroughly rinse the brush and let it dry in the sun (helps drive off any remaining chlorine). scrub out with the sterilized brush Thoroughly rinse the bird bath; start over again This winter I hope to make a large ceramic platter (I'm an amateur potter) with a glazed interior that will tolerate being sterilized with a bleach solution. I plan to bury that to it's lip in one of my raised beds and keep it filled with water via a dripper line. I'll make something similar for use as a butterfly puddler. Having a water feature can only help in attracting birds, but patience will help as well. One thing I would suggest is to get rid of the "songbird mix" and feed only black oil sunflower seed, safflower seed, and nyjer (in a tube feeder), in the way of seed. Every "songbird mix" I've ever seen has a high proportion of "junk" seed in it which attracts house sparrows, to your peril. At my former residence, they weren't much of a problem, but here they have mobbed my feeder to the point where I had to stop using it. They even scared my hummers away, as well as the mountain jays, mountain blue birds, and quail. Sadly, their seed scattering ways seemed to actually ATTRACT pigeons, LOL! I'm going to try to put the sunflower seed (which has to be hulled due to the former owner of this place having put in Astroturf - impossible to clean sunflower hulls out of) in a mesh feeder that only clingers can use and see if that helps. Otherwise, it's hummingbird feeders and the quail block, and the nyjer mesh feeders I have, and that's all I'll be able to put out here. Maybe an upside-down tube feeder. But nothing for the house sparrows!

I ended up removing the suet feeder today as the sparrows figured out how to get enough of a foothold to eat from it. I guess upside down feeders just don't work here either. Its rather frustrating to look out into your yard to see all your nice feeders completely covered in house sparrows. So much so that I've almost quit feeding birds altogether a few times. I really do wish the neighbors would just quit feeding and putting out nestboxes for them. Woodpecker-feeders.com has one that they swear is starling resistant. Ive emailed the site owner and inquired if it is sparrow resistant as well, and I'm curious to hear what he says.

I had a bunny that was visiting me for a few months,At the end of the summer I found a young baby bunny dead at the end of my sidewalk. One day last year when my daughter was cutting the grass for us,she almost ran over a baby squirrel. His eyes weren't even opended yet. I called around and found a Vet that told me the name of the formula and how often to feed him. I had him in a big fish tank with a heating pad under a blanket. I had to feed him every three hours. We did that for four days.Then I had fed him at 3AM and his eyes were just starting to open. When Jim went to feed him at 6, he had died. Broke my heart.