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What To Do If You See These Unpleasant Birds In
Your Yard
By JENNY LYNCH
Blue Jays
Blue jays are territorial to a fault and shockingly loud. To cut back on the number of stunning blue visitors to your yard, switch up the seeds in your bird feeder.
You can also try startling blue jays away with owl decoys and reflective surfaces. Clanking metal wind chimes might beat them in the noise game too.
Cowbirds
Cowbirds destroy birds’ eggs and replace them with their own. Call NestWatch to report nests with one egg or one nestling that looks dubiously different from the rest.
Use tube feeders that make it hard for cowbirds to access the food. Switch up the seeds you provide and avoid cowbird favorites such as sunflower seeds and millet.
Canada Geese
Canada geese overgraze and they leave behind as much as 4 pounds of excrement each day. Deter them by using solar-powered flashing amber lights from Away With Geese.
These solar-powered flashing amber lights are barely perceptible to humans, but they will agitate Canada geese so they'll have no desire to stay in your yard.
Common Grackles
Grackles bully birds away from bird feeders. Birding experts Kenn and Kimberly Kaufman said, “Cage-style feeders are the best way to address this problem.”
Grackles nest in colonies that can exceed 100 birds that lurk. Thankfully, the experts added, “The specific size of the openings in the cage [...] [averts] access for grackles.”
Cooper's Hawks
Cooper's hawks feed on smaller birds. Provided you want songbirds in your yard and wish to see the hawks gone, take away the feeders for a short period of time.
The smaller birds may suffer a few hunger pangs without those bird feeders, but the Cooper's hawks will lose interest and take their hunting business elsewhere.