When Thieves Act Like Thieves

Have you ever noticed that those birds and animals we’d prefer not to visit our feeders and yards are the ones that are also the most skittish? They act like thieves, and it’s possible that this contributes to our perception of them, as well.

In my case, the thieves are whitewing doves, squirrels, and recent arrivals, some house sparrows. The moment anything moves even slightly around them, they startle and zip up into the trees. To some extent this also includes the blue jays — they are more like bullies sometimes than thieves, but they too startle easily (I don’t mind them, though). Deer, too — they seek plants from people’s yards but are usually quick to dart away at a potential threat (unless the population is so large that they become accustomed to humans, as is the case in many neighborhoods).

The other birds that frequent the feeder don’t mind my presence. The cardinals, chickadees, titmice, finches — they might chirp at me, but they’ll keep eating while I’m near. They act like they belong there. Not at all thief-like.

Lately I’ve been having a problem with whitewing doves again — the numbers had jumped to 20-30 at a time. Obviously they didn’t all get on the feeders at once, but they’d line up and take turns, forcing another one to move off the feeder if it sat there pigging out too long. Sometimes they’d even attempt to sit on birds already on the feeder tray. The rest would hang out on the ground going for leftovers. The seed was being depleted at a crazy rate, and truth be told we can’t afford for the gluttons to just sit there downing the whole feeder’s worth of seed in one fell swoop (pun intended).

And so even though it seemed like I had just done this a few days ago, I had to go buy birdseed again today, all the while wondering whether it was going to have to be replenished again next week. But as I tell the kids all the time, “If you have a problem, find a solution.” (I also tell them, “Don’t just fuss or complain or skip a task or wait on Mom,” but that doesn’t pertain to the current topic, haha). Solve the problem.

So while I considered once again whether to buy a new feeder with a cage or a weight-sprung closure to keep the doves and squirrels out, I once again pushed the thought away because I really didn’t want to spend a lot of money to replace a perfectly good feeder, and we couldn’t afford it anyway. Have you seen how much those anti-dove cages cost?

And then the lightbulb came on — why not use some leftover cattle panel to create our own cage around the birdfeeder? Surely cardinals and other birds would be able to get through, but the larger doves would be kept out. If the cage was wide enough, we’d be able to refill the feeder as normal, simply lifting it off the hook and guiding it out of the bottom of the cage. So my older son and I grabbed the cattle panel and some wire, and it only took a few minutes to create the cage.

Within moments, it was already working. The doves tried their hardest, but at best they could land on it only for a few seconds.

You could see them really trying to *solve*the*problem*. Their moms must have taught them well.

Only THIS mom thwarted them!

Enter the cardinal. Would he be able to get through the cattle panel?

Yep. No problem. In fact, he seemed to love that he was all alone in there.

The doves watched to see how the cardinal did it.

So the next test was the blue jays. I was concerned that they might not be able to get food, because they are fairly large birds. One jay watched the doves’ failures for awhile before his own attempts. And sure enough, the cage presented a bit of a challenge at first. He managed to awkwardly snag a peanut and then fly off.

But two then easily got through the cage and happily ate their peanuts. Chickadees of course barely even noticed the cage and slipped right in.

Success!

So the doves acted like thieves, and the smaller songbirds got the prison cage. But so far it seems the songbirds like it a lot. They get to sit in there and do all the feasting for a change. The pictures won’t be quite as pretty with the cage in the way, though. Perhaps it can come down from time to time.

And I’ll keep sprinkling seed on the ground for the doves — only this time I’ll get to control how much they get. They’re supposed to be ground feeders anyway. The sparrows haven’t been much of a problem, and their chirps are kind of cute, but I’ll keep an eye out for future feeder obsession. I don’t mind the squirrels — they can get to the other feeder and are sure to figure out a way to get into the cage of the revised one. And all of them can get seeds off the ground.

By the way, I was thrilled to see an female Goldfinch visiting the thistle feeder.

And here’s a pretty House Finch, before the cage was added.

I’ll miss the direct view of the birds. But to save the money for birdseed and reduce the dove numbers, the cage is worth it.