[Woodyboat]

I hate Grackles, Starlings, Cowbirds and even BlueJayes - all the bully birds.

We built this house in 1995 and put a big beautiful wooden deck on the back facing a really nice patch of woods between our place and the subdivision behind us about a half a mile away. It's very peaceful and a great place to sit in our bay window of a morning with a cup of coffee to watch all our song birds eat the seed and suet we put out for them. We especially like the woodpeckers and are amazed at the variety of them that we have here in TN - Downies, Ladderbacks, Hairies and a few Red Heads.

But when the bully birds arrive, the show is over. These guys run EVERYTHING else off and they keep them off. Then they absolutely desecrate the feeders and all the suet. They don't leave until things are either completely depleted or they're so torn up that we can't make heads or tails of it all. This REALLY infuriates my mother. At 86, our song birds are a real therapy for her.

Right at the moment, it's winter. Everything is covered in snow and the little song birds are just ravenously hungry. They have come to know us so well that they don't even run when I walk out on the back deck to restock the feeders. They just hop up on the railings just a few feet away and wait for me to pour in more seed. They will all be on the feeders by the time I get the back door closed.

We've discovered that, if we find just one bully bird and get rid of him, the others think twice about coming around. They seem to send out scouts and when a scout is successful, it goes back and tells the entire flock. So getting that one bird is important. Popping them with the .22 is great fun but just the other day, the recoil spring broke and left the bolt jammed. So now it's down to the pellet gun and dang it. I hate having to reload after one shot and them pump the darn thing. I have new parts for the .22 ordered but I will have to be happy with the pellet gun. The only other gun I have right now is the .357 and I don't think the neighbors would be too happy if I were blasting away with that. LOL Just the concussion from that is enough to shatter the wine glasses in the kitchen.

Oh well... I'm just ranting. LOL