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Shoutout to the guy on birdcall who made me rethink my feeder setup
I was at the local bird store last weekend and overheard this older fella telling the clerk how he stopped using mixed seed because the starlings just bullied everything else away. He said he switched to straight black oil sunflower and it completely changed his yard. So I tried it myself and sure enough, the cardinals and chickadees show up way more now without the messy hulls everywhere. Has anyone else had good luck just sticking with one seed type?
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drew_reed625d ago
Saw a review online where a guy swore by safflower seed for keeping squirrels out, so I gave it a shot with my tube feeder. Turns out the finches and titmice love it, and the squirrels just walk right past it now. Ever tried mixing safflower with the sunflower to see if that keeps things balanced?
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jamesroberts5d ago
Three years ago I had squirrels chewing through a plastic feeder so bad I had to replace it twice before switching to safflower. It worked for about six months and then the local grey squirrels figured out how to knock the feeder hard enough to spill seeds on the ground anyway. I never mixed it with sunflower because I figured if they already don't like the taste, adding something they do like just seems like asking for trouble. Some folks swear by it, others say the squirrels adapt after a while, so maybe it depends on how stubborn your local ones are. At the end of the day I just gave up and hung the feeder on a pole with a baffle, which has worked better than any seed trick ever did.
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craig.mila5d ago
Wait hold on, you had to replace the feeder twice before trying safflower? I mean, that's dedication but also kinda painful to read haha. Idk how you didn't just go nuts after the second one got wrecked.
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