Garden bully - advice needed

alz007

I have set up peanut & seed feeders in my small back garden for the last few months and it has been going brilliantly up until 2 weeks ago. There are 4 different type feeders set up on the one stand, which also includes a micromesh tray and a water tray.
I have been blown away with the variety of birds that have come for a feed. We regularly have all the 4 tit varieties, goldfinches, greenfinches, bullfinches & chaffinches feeding from the ground (never from the feeder), house sparrows, siskins, robins, blackbirds, starlings, collared doves, dunnocks and wrens. The whole shebang, it was some sight to see them all. They all seemed to co-exist perfectly well and everyone seemed to get their fill. The peanut and seed feeders had to be topped up pretty regularly. I was delighted.
This was the norm up until about 2 weeks ago when I noticed a big drop off in the consumption of food when I returned from work. On the first weekend, it was apparent that nobody was coming anymore. I sat looking out the window to find out what was going on. After a while I realised what was happening. The group of 4 long tailed tits that normally come, went to the feeder as usual. The from a nearby tree a bird swooped down and agressively chased them all away. This was a small stout grey bird with a black head which never came to the garden before. I now know this is a male blackcap.
After this happened I saw him chase a goldfinch away. Then I saw a great tit try and stand up to him and defend but the blackcap was so persistent and angry that he just flew away. It is now like this blackcap has claimed my garden for himself and is not letting anyone in. I have not seen any greenfinches or siskins in the area in 2 weeks and they used to be here every day.
The blackcap just sits in a tree and waits for somebody to try their luck (which is usually the blue tits) and then he swoops down and tries to fight them. The others don't bother come anymore, even tho the weather is really cold and there is a wide variety of food in my garden. It's like this guy has scared the s**t out of them all. And to make it worse, it seems the blackcap has not much interest in eating himself. I see him nibbling at the suet balls the odd time.
I have tried taking the feeders inside for a few days, I have tried to move the feeders, but nothing has worked. I'm getting desperate and really don't know what to do with this territory hungry little s**thead. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, as I'm relatively new to this

NickNickleby

I occasionally see this behaviour, if there's lots of birds down. However, generally, I think the fact that I have : the four pronged feeder; a bird house with mesh round it to deter the bigger birds; and a separate peanut feeder hanging off the shed, means that a bully can only impact one location at a time. I wasn't thinking about this when I put them up, it was more because my handkerchief of a garden was getting up to about 20 birds at a time, so I increased the number of feeders.

edit to say: starlings are the biggest pests and they drive ALL the other small birds out. When that happens I run out clapping my hands and the starlings fly away after two or three attempts. But sure I can't be watching for starlings all the time, and the little sh/1tes can empty the birdhouse feeder in minutes - it would last all day if only the small birds and pigeons were around.

Bsal

Blackcaps love apples, maybe spear and apple onto a branch near where the Blackcap hangsout and hopefully it keeps him busy

Alun

I'm having the same problem with an agressive blackcap. Have barely seen another bird on our feeders for about a week or more.

The funny thing is that we had blackcaps, male and female, before this, sharing the feeders with other birds, so I'm not sure what happened.

upupup

Aggressive birds will sometimes fight with their own reflection in a mirror so a mirror may keep him distracted and also tire him out.

Mod: Not a good idea, please do not do this.

gzoladz

Bsal wrote: »

Blackcaps love apples, maybe spear and apple onto a branch near where the Blackcap hangsout and hopefully it keeps him busy

+1 I was going to suggest exactly the same!

Half-cocked

I have an aggressive male Blackcap too. He even takes on Starlings over who gets an apple.

Alun

Half-cocked wrote: »

I have an aggressive male Blackcap too. He even takes on Starlings over who gets an apple.

In my case, it's only the odd starling and the pigeons that aren't afraid of him. Everything else has simply disappeared.

OpenYourEyes

upupup wrote: »

Aggressive birds will sometimes fight with their own reflection in a mirror so a mirror may keep him distracted and also tire him out.

This would be a terribly cruel thing to do - do not do this under any circumstances!

OpenYourEyes

As others have alluded to, the best thing to do is to provide food in a variety of locations around the garden. The Blackcap will only be able to defend one area at a time, and the other birds can make use of the feeders elsewhere.

I've seen this behaviour in both male and female wintering Blackcaps, and Mistle Thrushes can do it too (usually defending a bush with berries, not a feeder). Pretty amazing to watch how determined they are!

gzoladz

OpenYourEyes wrote: »

This would be a terribly cruel thing to do - do not do this under any circumstances!

Agreed...Blackcaps matter!

upupup

gzoladz wrote: »

Agreed...Blackcaps matter!

Not if its disturbing the peace in my garden!....I'v never had a blackcap in my garden but if i had an aggressive bully bird that harassed and scared off my regular birds, i would have no issues with scaring him away.
Some may say its natural but a garden full of food in winter isn't natural so I am the boss and my rules apply:) and I'd choose a garden full of birds over one single bully bird.
bully blackcaps don't matter:mad:

OpenYourEyes

upupup wrote: »

Not if its disturbing the peace in my garden!....I'v never had a blackcap in my garden but if i had an aggressive bully bird that harassed and scared off my regular birds, i would have no issues with scaring him away.
Some may say its natural but a garden full of food in winter isn't natural so I am the boss and my rules apply:) and I'd choose a garden full of birds over one single bully bird.
bully blackcaps don't matter:mad:

Our point is that there's an inherently cruel way to do it, and a way that isn't cruel. Pick the latter!

upupup

OpenYourEyes wrote: »

Our point is that there's an inherently cruel way to do it, and a way that isn't cruel. Pick the latter!

You have an idea in your head that its cruel and its an idea, just like putting a mirror in the garden is an idea.
I see a distraction that may lead to the bird fleeing from the garden as birds usually give up easily before injury and will often give up if the opponent seems bigger.The bird might tire itself out and flee or the bird may ignore the mirror and continue to bully.
There are lots of outcomes so the cruel outcome in your head is your idea and not one i would agree with until i saw proof.

There are hundreds of thousands of outside mirrors around the world on cars and we don't see the cruel consequences that you are referring to on any big scale

OpenYourEyes

upupup wrote: »

You have an idea in your head that its cruel and its an idea, just like putting a mirror in the garden is an idea.
I see a distraction that may lead to the bird fleeing from the garden as birds usually give up easily before injury and will often give up if the opponent seems bigger.The bird might tire itself out and flee or the bird may ignore the mirror and continue to bully.
There are lots of outcomes so the cruel outcome in your head is your idea and not one i would agree with until i saw proof.

There are hundreds of thousands of outside mirrors around the world on cars and we don't see the cruel consequences that you are referring to on any big scale

It's illegal in Ireland to play bird calls without a license, because by doing so you will make the other birds in the area thing there's an intruder in their territory and you'll stress them out at the very least, and at worst you'll cause them to spend a significant amount of time and energy on unnecessarily defending their territory that they would otherwise be putting to more productive and natural uses.

In terms of the impact of outdoor mirrors etc, a lot depends on the positioning, the light levels at that time of year, and the resident species and their ecology, but suffice it to say it happens a lot in Ireland each year. When that's accidental it's fine - it's not cruel because it's not intended, and the person who notices it can make minor changes to ensure the bird is no longer bothered by it. To do this intentionally though is completely unethical and cruel. You'll also likely stress out your local Robins and possibly Blackbirds and other species.

And yes I do have 'an idea in my head', as a professional ornithologist and one with years of training and a long list of licenses to ensure I can work closely with birds without causing them undo stress or harm. So I'm confident that the 'idea in my head' is much better informed than the idea in yours. The bird might flee if it thinks the rival is stronger or more dominant than it is - but if you think about it for a few seconds you'll realise that the bird isn't more dominant and won't appear bigger, because it's the same bird. So in terms of visual clues of dominance, the real bird will fancy it's chances, and certainly when it realises that the bird in the mirror can't attack it back, it'll certainly fancy its chances, but that will mean it keeps attacking it until the rival is gone - which it never will be.

It's cruel to put up a mirror with the specific intent of trying to make a bird think there's a rival in its territory. There's other things that can be done, and wintering Blackcaps often move on after a couple of weeks anyway.


(I'll ask other posters to excuse my curtness, but cruelty to animals or a willful ignorance on what is cruel despite being told, is something that bothers me a great deal!)

New Home

MOD: Suggesting "solutions" that are likely to cause harm to an animal is not on, especially when there are other more innocuous if not downright positive solutions available. Animals have already enough on their plates trying not to get hurt by stuff that's already out there without adding to the problem. As for "bully blackcaps don't matter", they do, actually - for biodiversity, if nothing else.

Please feel free to post constructive suggestions, otherwise I'll lock the thread.

gzoladz

Keep it simple, if a site provides Food and/or Shelter, the species will make use of it, regardless if this is provided naturally or artificially.

It's wildlife at the end of the day, so actions can be taken to attempt attracting some species over others, but I don't think there is a magic / 100% effective sustainable and legal way to do it.

"Cherry-picking" is not an option, we have all had to deter visitors in our feeders at some stage i.e. specific rodents, birds carrying diseases, etc, and by doing that the "desirable" visitor took a hit for a short period of time.

I would just try to get to the "Acceptance" stage of grief as quickly as possible...my 2 cents.

wildwillow

I stopped feeding birds in my garden some time ago as a sparrow hawk had found my garden an easy source of dinner.
No matter how I positioned feeders it swooped in and usually nabbed a bird.
It is a large counry garden with plenty of trees and cover.
I noticed there were no pigeons left after a while, found feathers as evidence of massacre.

Pipmae

I'm envious of all your finches OP. I have most of the birds you mentioned but only the Chaffinch from the finch family.

I'd suggest feeding the blackcap separately and see what happens. Bit by bit move its feed further away from your feeders aimed at the other birds. I have feeders hung from my hanging basket hooks and I also have a lovely bird house. the largest bird that can go in the birdhouse is a collared dove from what I can see.

Another alternative is to move your feeders closer to your house/window. I found the bigger birds are less likely to approach them when they're closer to the house (albeit when I'm in the kitchen - I'm sure they'd have no issue when the house is vacant).

Also as someone else mentioned maybe space the feeders out a bit more. It would give the birds more of a chance of dodging the blackcap.

If I find it all getting a bit too aggressive I remove the suet balls for a few days. These brings out the worst in the birds in my garden. It must be like alcohol for humans....

fryup

its a male blackbird that's the bully in my 'hood'

here he is on a fatball

Pipmae

My male blackbird is a lovely timid guy. He is crazy about black grapes - I slice a few for him daily.

appledrop

For anyone who wants to attract finches they adore sunflower hearts. Once I started using them goldfinches + greenfinches came to the garden.

I love every bird in garden. They are all different. I love the Sparrowhawk, they are stunning. In fairness preference here is for pigeons + plenty of them around but they actually don't kill that many.

The blackcap love apples + not on ground but on a branch as others have said so try that.

Only aggressive bird I have is female blackbird + its mainly just the male she chases away!

It's great the way blackbirds, pigeons, collared doves, dunnock, robin and chaffinch clean up around bird feeder so very little mess.

appledrop

Pipmae wrote: »

My male blackbird is a lovely timid guy. He is crazy about black grapes - I slice a few for him daily.

Never thought of grapes but if I put out a pear instead of apple sometimes the blackbirds go crazy for it.

Pipmae

appledrop wrote: »

It's great the way blackbirds, pigeons, collared doves, dunnock, robin and chaffinch clean up around bird feeder so very little mess.

I find the ground underneath the feeder gets quite dirty with bird poo. Now I do clean it with a hose, yard brush and mild disinfectant every few days. But I end up getting rid of any seed that falls to the ground which is a bit of a waste. I don't want the birds getting sick from eating off the poo soiled ground though.

The nyjer seeds are the biggest waste.

Edited to say I'm definitely going to try the sunflower hearts - thanks for the tip.

appledrop

Pipmae wrote: »

I find the ground underneath the feeder gets quite dirty with bird poo. Now I do clean it with a hose, yard brush and mild disinfectant every few days. But I end up getting rid of any seed that falls to the ground which is a bit of a waste. I don't want the birds getting sick from eating off the poo soiled ground though.

The nyjer seeds are the biggest waste.

Edited to say I'm definitely going to try the sunflower hearts - thanks for the tip.

I only use sunflower seeds so actually very little waste or much drops to ground. Also get a special sunflower heart holder. Only finches really that sit on it, rest pick them out like all the tit family and then fly down to more sheltered area at back to eat it so very clean underneath it.

I do keep area clean as unfortunately a few years ago all greenfinches disappeared + never really recovered I'd say due to disease they are probe to.

Alun

Bumping this thread as my "bully" black cap seems to have gone AWOL at last. If he's an overwintering one, would he have headed away already (seems a bit early) or has he just moved on to bully at someone else's feeder?

fryup

maybe he was jumped by the other birds?? and taught a lesson

Alun

... and he's back !!!

alz007

OP update:
Firstly, many thanks for all the suggestions! Very grateful for the feedback. Unfortunately nothing was successful. I tried apples in a different part of the garden (he was still agro with the others), splitting up the feeders, chasing him away, taking away the feeders for a week etc., but nothing worked.
However, I haven't seen him now for around 3 weeks (without any permanent measures) and the garden is now a hive of activity again.
A female Blackcap(that I never saw before) came to the garden 2 weeks ago and exhibited the same behavior. I chased her away, and she has never returned. I really believe the male has passed, as he used to be here all the time. Maybe the rest ganged up on him? Well anyways, it looks like it has all worked out naturally in the end. Everyone is back to the garden in droves with the exception of the long tailed tits.
Btw great call by someone on this thread that mentioned the sunflower hearts!! There were 14 goldfinches here the other day and even more siskins :eek:

Pipmae

So I have myself a male blackcap. He seems calm enough for now but I'll see how long that lasts. He's happy sharing with the other birds eating from the table so far.

I still have no sign of any goldfinches. I thought I had a greenfinch at the table a week or so ago but I must have been mistaken as nothing since.

Sorry photos not great - had to zoom in on my iPhone.

Pipmae

Make blackcap on the decking rail