My 96 year old mother sits in her lounge enjoying watching small birds feeding from her bird table but visits from local pigeons, seagulls and crows annoy her greatly. Though feeders with a surrounding cage can prevent larger birds from getting at peanuts food scraps placed on the table are raided by the larger birds. A simple cheap wireless device using MP3 recordings of raptor screams doesn't seem to work (I've tried gunshots, buzzing sounds etc) using a commercial musical wifi doorbell unit from Siemens (JSJS-214) replacing the chimes using a desktop PC. What clearly is needed is some movement to replace or combine with the sound but exactly what and how is the question. Whether it might be possible to modify the unit in some way to trigger a small electro-mechanical device is the issue and I would welcome suggestions. The body of the loudspeaker contains access to 2 C type batteries. Btw I bought 2 of these doorbells through EBay at about £16 each though the RRP is c £50. Btw I too would be pleased to have such a device as would others to whom I have spoken. Maybe there's a commercial opportunity! Weatherproofing is one of the major issues.

 

It might be easier and possibly more effective to cage the whole thing with suitable mesh to keep out the bigger birds. Birds are not stupid, especially corvids and they will get used to whatever scare tactics you use if there is food on offer.

 

What about a water spray device, like an heron scarer, uses an hose pipe...

 

Since posting I have continued to experiment with refining the sound and its proximity to the bird table. The best result to date is a 14 second burst of a downloaded recording of pigeons squawking in terror as they take off en masse- amplified as loudly as the electronics and speaker will allow and with the speaker within a metre of the table. Seagulls and a huge black crow fled in terror but I'm waiting for a pigeon currently! They seem to be the tamest and least likely to scram! I'm wondering what neighbours might say if I employ the remedy too often!

 

What about a water spray device, like an heron scarer, uses an hose pipe...

Difficult to sort out a mains supply to the bird table but there is at least one commercially available device which works in this way.

 

They do battery powered water jets.

 

Just Google small bird feeders, there are quite a few arrangements that prevent the larger birds from using them.
I have used a few of these methods as I also have a problem with squirrels trying to feed off them.
Also you can get suet cages to hang for some of the small song birds.
Max.

One example.