Starlings at Feeders: Exclusion, Not Deterrence

The short answer

• A flock of 20 starlings can clear an 11 oz suet cake between breakfast and lunch. The same cake feeds a pair of downy woodpeckers for well over a month.
• The upside-down suet feeder is the single most effective anti-starling device there is: woodpeckers, nuthatches and chickadees feed hanging upside down, starlings mostly cannot.
• Starlings use platforms, the ground and suet cages. Remove open trays and ground scatter and you have removed two thirds of their access before touching a feeder.
• Safflower and nyjer are both rated zero for starlings in our preference data, so switching seed removes them from your seed feeders entirely.
• Grease bands, reflective tape, plastic owls and noise devices fail within days. Starlings are among the most habituated birds in North America and none of these change the geometry of the feeder.

Starlings are not a squirrel problem in feathers. They are a volume problem. One starling at a suet cage is a mildly annoying bird. Twenty starlings working the same cage in relays is a feeding station that costs several times what it did last month and no longer holds the woodpeckers you put it up for.

The arithmetic of a flock#

A standard suet cake is about 11 oz, or roughly 310 g. Suet runs around 740 kcal per 100 g, almost all of it fat, so one cake holds about 2,300 kcal.

Now split it two ways, using working figures rather than measurements:

That is the whole problem in one table. Twenty birds at 15 g apiece is 300 g, which is the entire cake, and a starling flock does not visit once and leave. It works a circuit and comes back. The cost is real but the bigger loss is the woodpeckers, who will not queue behind a flock and simply stop coming.

Where starlings can actually feed#

The useful starting point is that starlings are not universal feeder birds. They are large, they feed perched or on the ground, and they have a specific and short list of access points.

Skip for this species: Safflower, Nyjer, Nectar.

Three feeder types: platform, ground, suet cage. That is the whole surface area you have to defend, and two of the three you can close in an afternoon.

The upside-down suet feeder#

This is the single most effective anti-starling device in bird feeding, and it costs about the same as a normal suet cage.

The design holds the cake behind a grid that faces the ground, with a solid top and no perch. A downy, hairy or red-bellied woodpecker braces on its tail and feeds beneath a surface as a matter of routine, and so do white-breasted nuthatches, chickadees and titmice. Starlings feed perched and are poor at hanging upside down for the length of time it takes to work a cake. Most stop trying within a day or two.

Two details separate a working one from a useless one:

• A solid, overhanging roof. If the top is open or the roof is flush, a starling perches on it and reaches around the edge. You want an overhang the bird cannot lean past.
• A recessed cake. The cake should sit slightly up inside the housing rather than flush with the grid, so nothing can be pulled out from an awkward angle.

Be honest about the exception: a small number of starlings do learn to hang. If yours have, move the cake into a caged suet feeder, or switch to plugs in a drilled log, which is a harder proposition again. The trade-offs are in suet cakes versus suet plugs, and the feeder designs themselves are covered in suet feeders.

Cages, mesh and the standoff distance#

A wire cage around a seed tube or a suet cage is the general-purpose version of the same idea, and it works on grackles, jays and squirrels at the same time.

The two numbers that matter:

• Mesh about 1.5 in. Passes chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, goldfinches, house finches and siskins. Excludes starlings, grackles, jays and squirrels. Cardinals are excluded too, which is the real cost, so keep a separate cardinal-friendly feeder elsewhere.
• Standoff of at least 3 in between the cage and the feeder body. A starling has a long bill on a long neck. A cage clamped tight to a tube is a decoration.

Weight-activated feeders are less useful here than people expect. An 82 g starling is light enough that many perch mechanisms never trigger, which is why a passive cage beats a mechanism for this specific bird. That comparison is worked through in caged versus weight-activated feeders.

Take the open food away#

Platforms and ground scatter are the other two thirds of the starling's access, and no hardware fixes them because there is nothing to exclude.

For as long as you have a flock:

1. Take open platform and tray feeders out of service entirely, or reduce them to a small tray you fill by hand and empty at midday.
2. Stop ground feeding and rake up existing spill. Starlings feed on the ground more readily than almost any other feeder visitor.
3. Move mealworms into an enclosed dish with entry holes around 1.5 in, because mealworms are a top-tier starling food and an open bluebird dish is an invitation. See mealworm feeders.

Change the menu#

The preference data does most of the work here. Starlings rate safflower and nyjer at zero, and both foods have a real bird audience.

• Safflower keeps cardinals, chickadees, house finches and titmice, and simultaneously drops grackles and most squirrels. Expect two to three weeks of adjustment while your regulars recognize it as food. Full picture in safflower seed.
• Nyjer in a fine-port feeder is essentially a finch-only food, and no starling will work it. See nyjer seed.
• Striped sunflower in the shell is a slow, hard seed for a starling bill, and cardinals, jays and grosbeaks handle it easily.

What to pull for the duration: suet, open mealworms, sunflower hearts, cracked corn, shelled peanuts and fruit. Those are the foods a starling flock is actually here for, and suet and mealworms are the two it rates top-tier. The same list mostly applies to grackles and blackbirds, and a narrower version of it applies to house sparrows.

What does not work#

Grease bands and greased poles. Oil on feathers destroys insulation and waterproofing, and the bird that picks it up is often not the one you meant to deter. This is a genuine welfare issue, not a matter of taste. Never apply grease anywhere a bird can land.

Noise, ultrasonics and distress calls. Days of effect, then nothing. In a residential yard they also affect neighbors long before they affect starlings.

Reflective tape, spinning discs, plastic owls, hawk silhouettes. Same story. Starlings mob real hawks. A plastic one does not concern them past the first afternoon.

Removing the flock. Starlings are not protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in the United States because they are not native, but state and municipal rules still apply and, more to the point, it does not work. Flocks range across whole neighborhoods and the gap fills within days. Background on the species is in the European Starling profile.

A two-week reset#

If a flock has learned your yard, exclusion alone can take a while to bite because the birds keep checking. Breaking the habit is faster:

1. Days 1 to 3. Remove every feeder. All of them, including suet and trays. Rake the ground clear.
2. Days 4 to 10. Put back one caged seed feeder filled with safflower, and nothing else.
3. Day 11. Add the upside-down suet feeder. Fill it once, and only once, in that week.
4. Day 14 onward. Rebuild from there, one feeder at a time, and stop at the first sign the flock has come back to check.

You will lose a fortnight of bird traffic and get it back within days. What you are doing is removing your yard from a flock's daily circuit, which is a behavioral problem with a behavioral solution. Once the circuit is broken, correctly built feeders keep it broken.

Frequently asked questions#

How do I keep starlings off my suet feeder?

Use an upside-down suet feeder, where the cake is held behind a mesh or grid facing the ground and the top is solid. Downy, hairy and red-bellied woodpeckers, nuthatches, chickadees and titmice all feed hanging beneath a surface without difficulty. Starlings feed perched and are poor at sustained upside-down clinging, so most give up within a day or two. Choose a design with a solid roof that overhangs, otherwise a starling will perch on top and reach around the edge.

Will a caged feeder stop starlings?

Yes, if it is built correctly. You need mesh of about 1.5 in, which passes chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, goldfinches and house finches, and a standoff of at least 3 in between the cage and the feeder body so an 82 g starling cannot reach through. Cages that sit tight against the tube fail: the birds simply push their heads in. A cage also excludes grackles, jays and squirrels, which is why it is the most useful single upgrade in a yard with a blackbird problem.

What seed do starlings not eat?

Safflower and nyjer. Both are rated zero for starlings in our preference data, and both have real bird audiences: cardinals, chickadees, house finches and titmice take safflower, and goldfinches, siskins and redpolls take nyjer. Striped sunflower in the shell is also a poor starling food because the thick hull is hard work for their bill. What you want to remove is sunflower hearts, cracked corn, millet, shelled peanuts and mealworms, which are all high-value starling foods.

Do noise deterrents or shiny tape work on starlings?

Not at a bird feeder. Reflective tape, plastic owls, hawk silhouettes, spinning devices and ultrasonic units all produce a few days of avoidance at best. Starlings live in cities, nest in buildings and feed in parking lots; they habituate to novelty faster than almost any bird you will see in a yard. Anything that would genuinely scare starlings off permanently would also keep chickadees and cardinals away, which defeats the purpose.

Can I trap or kill starlings?

European starlings are not native to North America and are not protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, so federal protection does not apply to them, though state and municipal rules on trapping and discharge still do. Practically, it does not work. Starling flocks range widely and the birds you remove are replaced from a regional population within days. Exclusion changes what happens at your feeder permanently; removal does not.

Why did starlings suddenly show up in numbers?

Two predictable pulses. Late winter, roughly February into March, when roosting flocks break up and natural food is at its lowest, and midsummer, when this year's juveniles join the adults and family groups tour the neighborhood. If your suet has always lasted and now vanishes in a morning, check the calendar before you assume something changed at your feeder.

Sources and further reading

1. European Starling Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds Diet, flocking behavior and history in North America
2. Feeding Birds Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Project FeederWatch Feeder designs and which foods attract which species
3. Migratory Bird Program U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Which species are federally protected and which are not
4. Bird Feeding and Care National Audubon Society General guidance on feeder types and foods