How to attract small garden birds back when magpies and crows have "taken over"?

[OhMyGodTheyKilledKenny]

We used to have lots of small birds in our garden but over the last year or so huge (and very loud) magpies and crows have taken over the neighbourhood and the small birds are few and far between.

Any idea how we can attract them back (and get the big, loud ones to bugger off)?

We had the same problem. We stopped ground feeding and invested in a few of these. The regular feeder fits inside and the cage stops the bigger birds from getting in. You'll have a week or two of fun watching the pigeons and magpies getting frustrated as they try to work out how to get at the food, and then they'll give up and move on.

We mostly put out fat balls, and doing it this way we've been eaten out of house and home this summer by juvenile blue tits, long tailed tits and goldfinches, but even supposedly ground feeding birds - sparrows, robins - have learned to use them too. The only downside is that blackbirds can't get in them either, but our blackies are tame-ish and will come to the door for us to throw them some suet pellets.

Hanging feeders are the way to go. Jackdaws do suss them out, eventually, but tend not to be able to steal the lot and most soon tire of the effort and stick to cleaning up crumbs with the woodpigeons. Crows aren't tempted by them and magpies are too ungainly to get near them.

Blackbirds are great if you can lure them because they give more aggressive birds what for but usually leave the more gentle ones alone.

Feeding-wise since the invasion we've only had a couple of hanging feeders in small fruit trees - a seed feeder and a bread holder (square cage you put slices of bread in). The larger birds have been descending on the latter but make a right mess doing so.

The seed feeder is in a place which makes it impossible for larger birds to get to but we still rarely see small birds there.

Maybe then I need to invest in some of the cage ones. The problem is one of the neighbours actively encourages the crows (or jackdaws?) and feeds them from an open bird table so they will still be hanging around thuggishly.

I’ve got lots of cover in the garden, dense hedging and shrubs that the little birds use as safe perching and nesting sites. Different feeders in different places, in winter I hang a couple on the washing line that have proved popular with the tits.
We do have magpies, and a mob of starlings that can be yobbish at tea time!

Crows have long beaks, are fairly sleek black and say caww.

Jackdaws have shorter beaks, wear greyish hoodies and say chack.

You need to invest in a Neighbour-Kill-O-Matic device, but the AVES Mk3 version available from Tits-R-Us. Hang it out your bedroom window whilst fixed to the window frame and it will automatically sense when scraps of food more than 0.6mm are ejected groundward from human elbow level. These food scraps attract pigeons, crows, jackdaws and magpies. Sensors within the device then launch electrically charged SAHH devices (Semi-Active Humane Homing) that hone in on the offender and send shockwaves around their rectal region, thus incapacitating or preferably terminating them permanently. After a few weeks as their food source dries up, crows and magpies will stop returning. If in doubt, you can also enhance the Kill-O-Matic by fitting a Corvidae pica-pica SAM* system which tracks and engages the offending birds before launching an inverted styranium shock-wave device co-terminus with the SAHH system. This has the effect of killing two birds with one stone.

*surface-to-air missile system. £134.95 from Countrywide Stores before 31 October.

Hahaha believe me shockwaves to their rectal regions are minor compared to what I'd like to do to them when they're screeching, cawwing and being generally thuggish and loud at dawn when I'm trying to sleep!!