can you tell me how to discourage grackles from my suet station?

[grasswire]

They are scaring the little bitty birds away.

[Arkansas Granny]

1. I have seen seed feeders inside a cage that kept the larger birds away.

I don't recall seeing one for a suet feeder, but you might be able to come up with something that would allow the small birds to access the feeder and keep the bigger birds out.

[Curmudgeoness]

2. Good luck.

I have the same problem with starlings ganging up on suet feeders. I have no answers. I finally gave up on putting suet out and just feed seeds. Maybe put several suet feeders out and spread them around if suet it important to you?

[Trascoli]

3. I've changed my seed type from time to time

and I've noticed a difference in birds. Sparrows are all gone, but the rest still come

[postulater]

4. If you're after nuthatches, woodpeckers etc.

you might try hanging the feeder from a string so it is dangling in the air.

The nuthatches and peckers love that but the grackles are so big they might object and give up. They don't seem like the hanging-upside-down kind of bird.

[Jamastiene]

5. I am having the opposite problem.

There is a flock of pine siskins and other various finches that have shown up to terrorize my regular birds. The Carolina chickadees are the only ones brave enough to risk getting screamed at and pecked in midair confrontations to grab a seed. The rest fly away and look shocked at the amount of aggression these little birds show them.

The way these birds do it is they stretch their necks out, open their beaks really wide, scream like a banshee, then stretch their wings out. If the other bird doesn't fly away immediately, they attack, then fly behind that bird and all around that bird attacking for a good 15 feet or so up into the air.

They can almost hover like hummingbirds when they are flying. They also do this to each other too.
There is a photo I found online of exactly what it looks like (if you could slow down time and see some of what they do when fighting):

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/7671842/Pictured-two-pine-siskins-in-mid-air-battle.html

These little devils are eating me out of house and home too. I read they will go away in a couple weeks and go terrorize some other area of the country. I hope that is true, because I cannot afford them and all my pretty birds are now sitting around hungry with feathers sticking out everywhere from this flock of hellions attacking anyone and anything that gets near them. They even attack each other. There are two of them that fly up in midair and bang into the window at my cat. They use that same method I described above. He is an indoor only cat who loves to watch the birds, but these little birds scare the living daylights out of him.

The one positive is there are some goldfinches hanging out with this group of hellions. I get to see goldfinches in their winter colors. I always used to wish for goldfinches and now I get to see them at my feeders...along with their hell-raising ruffian friends. Be careful what you wish for. I know what that means now.

I now believe I have a good idea where Alfred Hitchcock got his idea for a bird horror movie now.

[grasswire]

6. holy moley!

I have learned that a squirrel trumps a handful of grackle at the feeder. And a bluejay trumps a grackle too.

Yesterday a bald eagle sat in a tree nearby. There are no squirrels to be seen when one of the eagles is out and about.

The suet feeder was opened yesterday by the squirrel. He opened the cage, the suet block dropped out, and the squirrel closed the cage again. LOL.

[Trascoli]

7. I guess I'm pretty lucky where I'm at

Nice squirrel. If only I could train the raccoons to close my trash lid I'm surrounded by wooded patches but have almost no squirrels. A few chipmunks, which I don't mind because they clean up the seeds the birds toss on the ground. It's very strange about no squirrels though, I'm guessing the hawks are taking care of them.