Feral pigeons galore as I feed the birds - how to deter them?

[cracker22]

I regularly feed my garden visitors (goldfinches, sparrows, blue tits, wood pigeons and a few blackbirds and collared doves) with seed in feeders. However, the birds are messy and picky and they spill a lot of seed onto the ground - and I now have up to 10 feral pigeons at a time gobbling it up.

I see that 3 inch mesh is recommended as this lets smaller birds get to the spilled seed, and I will try that if I can find some, but I haven't found any 3" weldmesh on the www yet.

Does anyone have any ideas how else I can deter / not attract the pigeons?

[Khandro]

3inch weldmesh sounds rather heavy duty material for deterring birds, you could get maybe a square metre of 'chicken wire' (with the hexagonal type of holes) which is sold from the roll, and attach with 'horseshoe' staples to a frame made of 2"x1" softwood, and lie it under the bird feeders. We have to make this type of frames here to slide under the engine compartment of cars left outside in the Winter - to deter pine-martens from climbing up into the engine and gnawing on the electrics !

[cupid04]

Make a pigeon pie!

[andres]

Don't know how you will get rid of the pigeons but you can buy feeders that let the smaller birds in and not the larger . They are a sort of double feeder. A cage with large openings with a smaller mesh one inside.

[tenrec]

Khandro, how lovely to hear you have pine martens.

[rowanwitch]

pigeons are lazy feeders if you put cheap pigeon corn out for them they will go for that leaving the good stuff for the small birds

[cracker22]

I got some (rather heavy) 3" (75mm) weldmesh - 8'x4' and so it rather snarled up the sides of my estate car a bit. But it has worked. I bent it over at the ends and added some plastic 3" mesh at the sides and put it under the feeders. Excellent! Except over 2 days I got 3 pigeons inside (which couldn't get out). I fixed this by putting some leftover 3" plastic mesh across the 4" ends and this seems (ie so far) to have fixed the problem.

The pigeons went a bit frantic seeing all that seed building up on the ground, but the songbirds (up to blackbird size) have no problem getting under the mesh and are perfectly happy, as am I :-)

I am now lifting an end every few day to let the pigeons in periodically to eat the bigger seeds that the songbirds leave.

So the mesh is a great solution if the songbirds are your priority, rather than visual aesthetics of the garden (as in my case)

[HELPLOVELIVELIFE]

Why discriminate. if you are a bird lover then you are a bird lover. Why do you feed the other birds and get satisfaction and when you feed pigeons you are unhappy. The problem is not with the pigeons its with your heart and mind which is becoming too narrow to understand that pigoens are a good standard bird. Instead of looking for the beuty in them you are more worried about the money you spend on the seeds. Feeding the hungary is a great deed. Dont let it pass you by... discern dont discriminate.........

[Khandro]

^ That sounds like a noble sentiment, but his garden could become as pigeon-populated as Trafalgar square, and keeping up with their appetite, financially exhausting.

[cracker22]

Thank you Khandro!

Update - I found the mesh and with some modifications it duly kept out the pigeons - so lots of goldfinches, blackbirds, sparrows and even an occasional thrush. Lovely! The pigeons frantically marched around the enclosure (heh heh) picking up a few crumbs.

But the larger seeds got left and germinated or, worse, attracted a rat. So it was back to the drawing board. I'm now feeding only nijer seed and will occasionally put out other stuff as winter approaches and refine the system.