I'm going to shoot these fucking magpies!!

[allsquareknickersnofurcoat]

There are two of them. They must have a nest nearby, they are circling my back garden non-stop and cawing all day and half the night. DS is just sleeping in his cot (his room is on the back) and they are bloody loud. Plus, I feel sorry for next doors cats who are both being attacked whenever they go anywhere near their house or mine.

And now, to top it all off, they are landing on my bloody sky dish and disrupting the signal!!!

I have one of those anti-squirrel feeders that izzy linked to - they do work, though you have to be careful about where you hang them. I had to move mine a few times before I got the better of our squirrel.

He was very good at getting the normal feeder & took all the sunflower seeds as soon as I put them out. He was very cheeky & stayed there while I took photos of him on the feeder & even a video through the window only a couple of feet away.

First I put the anti squirrel feeder on the feeder station, but he climbed the pole and managed to reach the bottom of the feeder, so I put it in a tree.

Then he got on a parallell but slightly lower branch that was close enough to reach so he could feed without having to put any weight on the sleeve so I moved it again.

This time he couldn't reach to feed, but managed to hang from his tail & hind legs and grab the bottom of the feeder with his front paws and pull it sideways. It was very entertaining watching him working out how to get at it, but he was getting through the expensive sunflower hearts at a rate of knots, so I thought 'Sod this' and went out & cut the parallel branch off.

He was totally furious and sat in the tree staring through the window directly at me, flipping his tail and chattering angrily - he obviously knew who'd cut off his access...

Erm, before anyone buys expensive anti-squirrel devices, try chopping the top off a 2l drinks bottle and putting it over the top of the feeder... Works for my parents and well worth 9p in most major supermarkets

Rusty...that squirrel is doing exactly what ours (I say ours because I saw 2 in the garden at one time having a standoff re the feeder) did.

Now that the peanuts are polished off we are going to remove that feeder (ours is like yours but green) and wait for our new one. We figure that the birds will have quite a bit of food around...as we have seen berries etc and there are plenty of worms and insects around.

After reading some of the reviews re Izzy's recommendation we decided for now to order a different one that is in a sort of cage. There's a tube in the middle for the nuts...HOPEFULLY only the little birds will have access. Fingers crossed...

So....we now have 2 working (but non squirrel proof feeders which we will keep till the winter) and we chucked away our last wire tube one which the squirrels destroyed!!!!

We feel we should be weaning the birds off the nuts....but when we see the little tits on them...we can't stop!

I think I've made a mistake planting a few sunflowers this year....I can imagine the seeds will be very quickly demolished by the squirrels!

Poppa - Our magpies are black and white crow type things with a flash of blue on their wings, but unfort they don't warble...

They make this horrible loud raucous squawky noise....
They have NOTHING going for them!

Purple...sounds like a make your own baffle...

Wouldn't work with our feeder as the squirrel hangs upside down....grabs the bottom of the feeder and hooks it towards him.

Would stop the ones with the technique where they approach from the top....but our London squirrels would get around those.

Purplepidjin - our squirrels go through anything plastic like a buzz saw. I don't generally mind the squirrels having a go at the seed or the peanuts, but the sunflower hearts which the greenfinches, blue tits and great tits love (and which don't leave a mess of husks on the ground) are quite expensive, so they are in the sliding feeder.

Magpies are the scourge of the earth. Bullying vicious bastards. I thought I read something about farmers being given permission to shoot them?
AFAIK, you only need to take one of the pairs out, they mate for life seemingly.

Aussie magpies much bigger and more aggresive than UK ones in my experience.

At our last house in Australia we used to pay protection bacon. It did work, I could walk down the street quite safely in the spring while all around me people are being dive bombed.

Cockies are out of control this year, I can't believe how many of the bloody things there are. I almost ran one over the other day, it was in the middle of the road. I stopped, assuming it would move, and it just sat there and dared me. It did move when I started forward again though, well, there wasn't a crunch.

LOL...must look up these Cockie's and Galah's!

But first...WORK!

Here are some videos of the corrella flocks that move about South Australia from the Fleurieu Peninsula (my area) up to the Mid and Far North of the state:

and the Australia magpie swooping...