Hi tweets,
Having lived in cities most of my birdfeeding years and having tried
a LOT of things over the years to discourage House Sparrows, this is what
I have found works:
Tube feeders best. REMOVE the plastic tray at the bottom and take
off all perches except one. House sparrows seem to like to feed in
gregarious groups, so if you make it hard, this discourages them. Also,
I use only black oil sunflower seeds. HOSP seems to like millet better,
so this seems to discourage them also. Make sure your house is not a
good nesting site for HOSP-this makes them more likely to be a pest.
Good luck.
Janet Partlow
partlowj at elwha.evergreen.edu

On Wed, 11 Sep 1996, S. Downes wrote:

> WE just moved into N.Seattle and we live next to a office complex. Even
> though right now I have up only a suet feeder and niger feeder up, I have
> house finches and black-cpped chickadees. I thought about putting black
> oil sunflower seeds in the tube feeders when I hang them up, I didn't know
> if the house sparrows would eat this too. I'm trying to discourage them
> and get the house finches as the dominant species. Any suggestions would
> be greatly appreciated.
> -Scott Downes
> sdownes at u.washington.edu
>
>