I make my suet mixture using suet or lard. I melt the fat in a glass bowl in the microwave until liquid. Then I add crunchy peanut butter, which melts in the hot fat. Then I add the dried ingredients - corn meal, flour, oats (usually ground in blender), ground eggshells, crushed nuts, a little jam or jelly, etc. The mixture is about 1/2 fat, 1/2 dried ingredients - maybe a little more dried. I aim for a mixture that is the texture of Play-doh - it clumps together easily for the suet log, but also crumbles into pieces that I spread in a tray feeder. I made the suet log over 3 years ago out of an old red Pine log and glued lots of perches and branches. It did not have much bark on it - which is fine, except that over time the log has darkened quite a bit, perhaps because of the oils in the suet mixture. Also, most of the perches and branches have broken and fallen off. This birds don't seem to care. If you put perches on the log, this will enable many more birds to eat more easily. However, this isn't necessarily a good thing because with mine, it enables the Starlings and Blue Jays to hog the suet log, and it encourages House Sparrows. My suet log is pole-mounted with a squirrel/raccoon baffle, so nothing gets onto the log but the birds. Here's what the suet mixture looks like - Some Bluebirds on the suet log a couple years ago. They don't eat that much on the suet log any more, because I usually spread crumbles in a tray for them.

No, black birds love Cracked Corn, but will eat just about everything else. The ones near my feeder are fond of sunflower seeds. However, the feeder has a roof and restricts the grackles to just a few at a time. I have a ground feeder filled with nyjer seeds. I notice that many Red Wing Black Birds often visit for a bite, but few Grackles eat it. The tube feeder above serve the finches who aren't bothered by the blackbird because they can't use the feeder. The ground feeder is currently used by mourning doves, who can hold their own against black birds. If you sprinkle food on the ground, the blackbirds will go for that first. I vaguely recall that they are also fond of cheap stuff like cheap dog feed, so you can try to give them an alternate feeder with the cheap stuff. However, this will also bring more black birds to your yard plus rodents. If you set up a feeder for grackles they will go to the easier ones. If there are too many, the rest will go to your other feeder. You may be better off with a tube feeder for small birds and a hanging cage feeder for the woodpeckers. Both are difficult for black birds to use because they are too big. If your neighbor has a easier feeder to use, they will go there and be his or her problem. Paul

Common Grackles and other grackles are natives and they have their fans. I happen to like them myself - they eat caterpillars that defoliate trees. I'm happy to give them suet if they'll stay around long enough to slurp up the winter moth and other caterpillars that are a curse in my region. Claire

I use tube feeders hanging from a double shepherd's-crook. On the ground around the pole, I have wall about 8 inches high and about 7 feet in diameter to contain the fallen seed. (The squirrels and ground-feeding birds tend to swish it around.) When grackles and starlings show up, I put a cover over the "seed circle" (which I made in two semi-circular pieces) for a week or two. The best material for this cover is 1/4-inch wire mesh (called 'hardware cloth'). It must fit snugly so that small birds don't sneak in and get trapped. Click on the picture below for a photo gallery with details: Back Feeders Usually, grackles and starlings find it awkward to use the tube feeders. (The shorter the pegs, the better.) But if there are a few that have learned how, I find that a "sparrow spooker" will also deter the grackles and starlings. I make my spookers with stiff wire (rather than string or fish line) hanging vertically around the tube feeders, because the string can tangle, and may even snag a bird. Birds with larger wingspans don't fit between these vertical wires. And house sparrows feel trapped if they can't exit the feeders in any direction; that's how I think they are deterred.