Help. My neighbours seem to be feeding 5000 starlings

[CanIDigIt]

AIBU to ask my neighbours to change their bird food and try to deter the starlings?

Dawn till dusk the noise is incessant. I have an almighty headache.

I've had to rewash three loads of laundry this week from droppings.

Is it just the time of year? I've lived here 4 years although obviously I'm at home A LOT right now. They are a complete nuisance.

How can I deter the starling flocks ?

We had our first visitor to the bird table today, a fat squirrel. Not the intended beneficiary but the kids were still delighted and loved watching it.

@EdwinaMay feeding the birds is good!! www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/advice/how-you-can-help-birds/feeding-birds/safe-food-for-birds/

And OP - YABVVVU as starlings are red listed as a high conservation concern www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/starling/population-trends-conservation/

what can you do, poison their bird feed?

It was the starlings nesting in my eyes that finally persuaded my 28 year old son to move out and get his own place

In my eves

#sugarplumfairy65
That's clever how did you attract them?

😂 starlings to the rescue

We saw a woodpecker on our garden for the first time, yesterday, too.

I put my feed out at night. Then the other birds get it before the starlings arrive. They usually send out a scout and if there is a fresh pile on the table a million will descend at a sqwawk from the scout. I also have starling proof -ish seed feeders and scatter bits in the hedge for the robins and wrens.

I have four robins, tons of tree sparrows, a family of dunnocks, a family of blackbirds, a family of Bluetits, a family of great tits, a nest building chaffinch, a family of wrens, wood pigeons, collared doves, two lovely yellowhammers, a pair of reed buntings, several jackdaws and a few visiting buzzards. I am very lucky.

Put the remains of a watermelon out last night- the magpie has gone nuts for it! He keeps biting off large chunks and taking it to the sunny side of the garden to eat (bit like me really!)

Well, my championing of starlings has bit me on the arse. Dh wanted a swift box put up,nice and high under the eves. Been up a couple of weeks, saw movement last night. Excitement! Looked this morning and starlings have moved in. Love starlings, but love swifts more.

Can I change my response please? Since I last posted (rather smugly, sorry) my bird table has been mobbed by gangs of starlings and they have shit all over my new patio furniture.

The starlings in our garden aren’t using our feeders - they are just picking up worms and bugs from the lawn and flowerbeds. So changing feeders or even removing them (and depriving the other birds) isn’t going to stop the starlings.

They are just as important as the other birds and this stage doesn't last for long....

@bubblysqueak they will now target you remorselessly!

New problem in my garden; I thought I had a caterpillar infestation in my veg patch and I was sunbathing at the weekend and saw it was sparrows decimating the broccoli leaves! Loads of them, stripping the leaves in minutes!

DS has been feeding our garden birds over the last weeks. He's got a jackdaw that will come and sit with him, and a pair of sparrows who perch on his head.
I suspect our neighbours think the amount of bloody great big corvids in our garden (rooks and jackdaws) is a bit excessive too, but tbh for the pleasure it gives him currently I don't really care! They're harmless and not a nuisance, just bloody enormous.