This year I purchased a huge carton of suet balls, at bargain price. I hang them in my little crab apple tree ‘Evereste’, much to the delight of all the little garden birdies. However I’m somewhat fed up (pun intended) with the behaviour of the sparrows who come in their masses, eat the balls in no time and scare away the shy blue tits (and great tits) which I much prefer to watch. The balls are clearly labelled in various languages including French “Boule mésanges”, which should keep the sparrows away but doesn’t. As we all know birds can’t read.
I have devised an ingenuous stratagem which does work. Those balls come individually wrapped in a green net and a plastic envelope. I cut the bottom of the plastic envelope and hang the top together with the top of the green net onto a wire hook. Et voilà. The clever tits soon find out how to hang to the bottom of the net whilst the dumb sparrows are kept away.
I also provide a garland of peanuts, strictly for the tits. The sparrows cannot cling to them, the chaffinches try but soon give up.
