I live in Chicago but grew up as a farm-boy so that leaves me wanting for wildlife. I like to get my kids thinking about nature so I try to draw to our backyard what little nature there is in the City, so our kids can see it–so we have a bird feeder.
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| A sparrow on our bird feeder |
If you like the feeder I have pictured above you can get a similar one here
The problem is that it draws a hoard of English Sparrows and they can empty my bird feeder in a single day. I wish I would have taken a picture of the line of something like 25 sparrows lined up on our fence, taking turns emptying our feeder this first time I filled it this spring. That is a big waste of money so I set out to find a solution to my sparrow problem.
How to Keep Sparrows Off Your Birdfeeder
I love the Internet–you can learn so much on here. With a little searching I found a website that sells squirrel-proof bird feeders but they also address the issue people have with English Sparrows. The solution–hang strands of fishing line over the area where the birds must sit while eating out of the bird feeder. I simply cut strands of fishing line that I taped with clear packing tape under the dome with a knot on the end so they won’t pull through. I put 6 strands of varying lengths as seen below:
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| Monofilament lines hanging down from the dome above our bird feeder |
Since then we have had very few birds at all on the feeder, honestly, but definitely many less sparrows. I’ve seen a field sparrow on there and I was happy to see them. It’s hard to tell how many good birds my new rig is scaring away but I’ll definitely be watching and will report in on this post when I see the neighborhood cardinal come back.
Update April 19, 2014:
The sparrows are staying off the bird feeder and I am seeing other (welcomed) birds on the feeder so I’d say this is a big success. The sparrows do eat the seed that falls to the ground and they sit on the fence watching the other birds eat off the feeder but they stay off and I haven’t had to add seed.
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| A sparrow on the fence watching the pair of red birds eat from the feeder |
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| A sparrow I found sitting on the sidewalk last winter–he must have been sick but I had to get up close to take a pic |
After writing this post I found this link that describes exactly what I did with my feeder, too funny:
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