11–20 of 33 posts
Why would you want to deter them? What’s the problem with them vs other small birds?
House Sparrows are invasive in the United States and they are very aggressive. They destroy the nests of native birds to eliminate competition.
Reminds me of this guy, who thought it would be a good idea to introduce the birds in Shakespeare's plays to the US.
As far as this actually does anything, the birds will surely learn to ignore it / navigate around it. That is why house sparrows are so widespread in the first place, they have adapted to all the stupid things we humans do.
As far as this actually does anything, the birds will surely learn to ignore it / navigate around it. That is why house sparrows are so widespread in the first place, they have adapted to all the stupid things we humans do.
Why would you want to deter them? What’s the problem with them vs other small birds?
Why would you want to deter them? What’s the problem with them vs other small birds?
Honestly, they are cute, I like having them around, but we've got some feeders, and if there are house sparrows, there are no other birds. We've been tweaking the feed we use and the form factor of the feeders to keep them away. Since we switched to nyjer, they've generally left the feeder alone, and we get finches instead.
As far as this actually does anything, the birds will surely learn to ignore it / navigate around it. That is why house sparrows are so widespread in the first place, they have adapted to all the stupid things we humans do.
> ”the birds will surely learn to ignore it” Why so sure? Did you read the papers and have any reasoning to why they will adapt?
Another observation: Because of the number of sparrows, I did pull the whole feeder down and kept it down for months. Then, when winter approached, I put the feeder and the halo back up, and no house sparrows made it through again. Did the adults who were defeating it before forget? Move on? Die? Who knows!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> ”the birds will surely learn to ignore it” Why so sure? Did you read the papers and have any reasoning to why they will adapt?
Because of learning and/or evolution. The paper doesn't offer any reason why they shouldn't adapt, as adaptation goes this one should be pretty easy as it is basically just a mindset, probably perfectly doable within the boundaries of learning. So if they become widespread, they will stop being effective, most likely within a few years. Just like the cartoon scarecrow with a bunch of crows resting on it, it wasn't da…