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Bluejays

13 years ago

I have one of those feeders in which the seed comes out under a pane of glass into a tray on the bottom and the birds sit on the edge of the tray to feed. To avoid having squirrels wipe me out in a matter of hours I only use safflower seed. My problem now is the bluejays appear disinterested in the safflowers seeds and use their beaks to "dig" for other seed. They literally throw the seed out of the tray into my flower garden below. The chipmunks are eating like kings and I'm spending $30/week on safflower seed.

Anyone have a trick to eliminating the bluejays? I have another feeder with regular wild bird seed in it, but they still insist on digging through the expensive stuff.

Thanks

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Comments (5)

dzyg
13 years ago
Peanuts! Bluejays love peanuts, they will ignore everything else if you give them peanuts, shelled or in the shell. I love my Bluejays!!

Donna
rsingley
Original Author
13 years ago
UGH, thanks Donna... Now I have to feed my bluejays expensive peanuts to keep them from my expensive safflower.

I need to think a little harder and try to remember what was different a few years ago. There was a time when this wasn't a problem. Differences between now and then... more feeders then, maybe less blue-jays then(not sure), perhaps they will learn there's nothing but safflowers there.

Thanks again...
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I have a bird table/tray (platform on pole, screened to allow rain to pass through). In addition to a few seeds, I often put out (cut up) pieces of poultry skin and fat, fish skin, gristle, cartilage, fruit, older nuts and seeds, and sometimes bread. I have a baffle on the pole to keep rodents away. Sometimes I put out older butter or peanut butter. On the few occasions when I cook a ham or lamb, I freeze/save that fat (cut up) then later on make a melted, reconstituted "fat/suet block" that I put into a large hanging cage (in cold winter). The fat cage hangs from a tree about 40 feet from the house but in view of the window. The small birds can fit through the wire mesh, the woodpeckers can access the fat block from the outside of the cage. The jays can pick up what falls.
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donald lucius
13 years ago
one thing that works for some people is to hang light chains or soft wires or tinsel down around the feeder spaced 3 or 4 inches apart. most of the bigger birds avoid the hanging stuff and the little ones don't seem to care about it.
stl57
13 years ago
The blue jay population was hard-hit by the West Nile virus a few years ago and is just now starting to return to normal levels. That could be why you're seeing a greater number of jays now than in prior years.

The fine folks at my local WBU gave me this suggestion for a similar problem I was having with starlings cleaning out my hopper feeder in search of peanut pieces. Put a screen across your feeder's opening. I used regular chicken wire having a 1" opening. Two overlapping offset layers may work better to reduce the opening to 1/2". This prevents birds from shoveling or raking seed out with their bills. The openings should be large enough to allow birds to pick out individual seeds. Chicken wire is easy to bend so I was able to mold it around my hopper's opening to keep it in place without having sharp edges endangering the birds.
rsingley
Original Author
13 years ago
That's very helpful info. I have chicken wire that will work great. Thanks for eveyone's input.

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