I live in a fifth floor flat with a balcony and it pleases me to put some bird feeders out for the local avian wildlife.
Over the past few years though I have experimented with a range of ideas to prevent pigeons hoovering up the food. I don’t intrinsically object to pigeons, but while most birds eat a bit then fly off, pigeons eat every scrap of food in one go – denying it to other birds.
Their excrement is also rather larger and more yeuky to clean up.
One thing I learned quickly is that pigeons have an evolutionary failure in their design – they only work when upright. Most birds can hang onto a branch at an angle. Pigeons can’t. So, placing food such as suet feeds next to an angled branch or pole ensures that most birds can feed, but pigeons are denied.
The problem is that smaller birds didn’t seem that keen on the suet feeders – unlike the magpies and starlings, so how to attract the rather cuter bluetits and robins?
Time to try the conventional bird feeders.
Unfortunately, pigeons near me seem to have been evolving into giant humming birds – and would basically leap up to the bird feeder, cling on to the rest bar, and flapping like mad, knock a load of seed onto the floor, where they would then eat it.
Not wishing to be responsible for the evolution of giant hummingbirds in the UK – I revised the plan.
After some hunting for suitable pigeon proof feeders, I decided to trial a squirrel proof design – well, pigeons are flying rats, so there should be some sort of crossover. Shouldn’t there?
Didn’t work. In fact made matters worse.
The pigeons now had something substantial to cling onto while flapping their wings, and while the model I purchased had a solid floor to stop the seed falling to the ground, the pigeons simply reached through the cage and ate from the holes in the tube for the smaller birds.
Ah-ha!
Cover those parts of the cage with wire – leaving gaps for the smaller birds elsewhere. Nope – while the smaller birds were not detered, neither were the pigeons – they just squeezed their way through other spaces.
In addition to evolving into giant hummingbirds, it seemed the pigeons necks were also becoming more snake like.
Giant grey hummingbirds with snake heads. I doubt future Londoners would thank me for that evolutionary switch.
What I needed is either a cage so large that pigeons couldn’t reach the interior goodies, or… some way of making it impossible for them to cling on to the outside.
In effect, I needed this!
As an experiment, I took some garden plant supports and using picture wire secured them to the cage so that they stuck out at random angles.
Initially, the pigeons seemed confused and several times launched themselves at the newly protected structure, only to come away with sore chests as they jumped at the spikes. They swiftly learned that was a mistake.
After a couple of weeks of testing, I can proudly announce that the IanVisits Patent Pigeon Proof Bird Feeder is a success!
The smaller birds actually quite like the extra spikes on the outside, although so do the Starlings, which may be an issue if you don’t like them. It’s not elegant as a design, but it works. And that is the key thing.
I also declare that any company manufacturing a bird feeder based on my design is FREE to do so, and please do so quickly. Households with pigeon problems need them.
Your findings are identical to mine. Even your solution of fixing garden plant supports on with wire [I used cable ties] is my workaround, too. However you will find some flying rats will still knock and rock the feeder to spill seed on the floor. That’s if the parakeets don’t get there first!
Oh dear how I laughed at your description of them as ‘Giant grey hummingbirds with snakeheads’ !! I too have a big problem with pesky pigeons, albeit not on a balcony but in my small back garden. They scoff every single scrap I put out for the smaller birds and seem to have a bottomless pit for a stomach. I’ve been scouring the net this afternoon for solutions. The best one I have found so far is using an upturned wire hanging basket over the food (talking about ground feeding here). I might try this. I have even resorted to using a water pistol on them, it does ‘stick it up them’ and get rid for a bit, but of course they come back – with an even more cockier attitude than before……..!
Excellent! While I don’t suffer from ordinary pigeons, thankfully, there are a couple of ginormous wood pigeons in the garden which keep eating all the seed and which I don’t want to encourage (they’ve already shat on my washing!). I shall deploy these defences forthwith (and utilise the excellent ‘ground feeder’ idea too!).
Thank you Ian!
It’s the obese wood pigeons I have as well, 2 or 3 of them at any time – and you are quite right, they sh*t everywhere – probably have to relieve themselves every few minutes in the garden, judging by the amount they get down their necks in such a short time!
I did successfully pigeon proof my garden one year; but the results were too painful. I crisscrossed fishing line, making horizontal and vertical rows from poles. The pigeons could not see the wires, and would get tangled. And unfortunately, did not seem able to understand what was going on or to learn by example. After 3 or 4 pigeons got entangled and had to be cut free and in some cases euthanized, I took the fishing line down. All of my feeders are weight bearing so they only can get what spills to begin with.
I love the idea of your ‘Hellraiser’ feeder.
Fat greedy giant grey hummingbirds have been driving me mad for years. I have two dogs that are quite happy to chase them but, the pigeons just fly away and wait for the dogs to go and then come back again! The poor garden birds don’t get a look in and at this time of year food is hard to find. I have a bird table so I will have to modify it to a Hellraiser too.
I like this idea. It’s awesome. . I really appreciate your work, keep up writing more ideas on this topic.
Aha, a solution maybe at last! I had got as far as putting the frail plastic tube into the squirrel proof cage, but Ian has gone a step further. I did a few extra detours via anti-squirrel slinkies etc, so if you want more info on what not to bother with, check out: http://www.karenliebreich.com/2012/bird-feeder-survey-squirrels-pigeons-10-cute-birds-0/
Could the picture wire hurt the birds though?
Erm, not if you tie it sensibly as any sensible person would.
You could use string if you are really worried though. Or any other mechanism for securing objects to each other.
hi
I’m interested in your design and might try it , just need to find a feeder with a cage as mine has no cage , could you tell me where you purchased your feeder? , also I take it that the sticks must be at angles and not level , the last picture looks almost like the sticks are level?
cheers
I do love the net – every problem eventually gets solved, even the really really tricky ones like how to deter flying shit-rat hummingbirds with snake necks and gulls and magpies and the squirrel that can reach a second floor windowsill. Thanks for your great idea, off to the shed now…
That is a nice solution – thanks for sharing. In my garden I was getting through a kilogram of seeds. The pidgeons seemed to be able to wrap themselves around the feeder so that they didn’t even need to flap their wings – batrats i call them.
Anyway a solution that worked for me, I think, it is still early days (two weeks) but the seed is staying much longer – was to remove opposite feeder pegs. So the feeders now only have one upper peg and one lower peg. The batrats needed to use two level pegs to get a proper purchase – it is a quick fix – I will probably use the suggestions above when I have time.
I hope this helps someone and thanks for this blog I was getting really annoyed with them – now they are just funny again rooting around on the ground :-), though I do like to put food out for the blackbirds, ah well