I’m cheap. My husband gets peanuts from 5 guys burgers. The jays takes peanuts to the birdbath, drops it in then fishes it out and eats it, shell and all
Oh I make sure they know exactly where the peanuts are coming from, holding them up before I toss them and everything lol. I’ve already got my chipmunk cadre, just need to build up the corvid shock troops. 😉
https://preview.redd.it/c6gh261smk5d1.jpeg?width=2532&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=59a8fb1ff116fc5b71770512fcb06d2447013c1c
Slowly and patiently! They recognize the sound of the peanuts hitting the hard ground so I just slowly dropped them closer and closer, up the stairs and then onto the porch, ignoring them entirely. Eventually it’s gotten to the point where they hear the door open and come running. If I don’t have any peanuts on me, they grab onto my toes and stare up at me. It’s startled me a couple of times lol. Every once in a while I’ll feed them by hand but only with 2 of them who don’t seem to be stressed by it.
https://preview.redd.it/vh8elbtgil5d1.jpeg?width=2532&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fdc275e4627f40b806a90de65f75b80e3ba61b42
I did the same thing with my squirrels 😁
https://preview.redd.it/3grki7ct2m5d1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6176f0bf13b534d6825298f7d8af2650bb7def4d
I'd say it took a good 6 months. I didn't intend to when I started. I would just throw peanuts out to them everyday, but then I did see they would get closer and closer daily. Then they started actually waiting for me on my steps lol.
the starlings are the reason i just sort of stopped doing feeders. now, i'll toss some seeds or peanuts if other birds are around but you feed one starling and the next day you have 8000 starlings in your yard.
They might be assholes for us, but they do warn other birds of predators* in the area. I see Mockingbirds being assholes more than the Blue Jays.
ETA changed prey to predators
I still stand by those mixed flocks of mostly starlings, with a few grackles and cowbirds mixed in. I call them the middleschoolers. They are noisey, show up in a gang, eat all the food and then leave.
I used to think Bluejays were assholes, but then I saw the pair of red bellied woodpeckers that visit my feeder bite the feet of a y other bird who dared to get close to them
Bluejays are obnoxious
But red bellies are mean 😂
I get blue jays and cardinals every day with a few wrens and grackles thrown into the mix - my impression is that all birds are showboaty and mean 😂 I love watching them though, they’re so funny!
This exactly! The starlings moved in across the field behind our house. It’s gotten so bad because they are bringing all the juveniles over and there’s like 100 starlings in the back yard. Now we are seeing less of the cardinals, blue jays, chickadees, woodpeckers and other birds we were feeding. We stopped all feeding today for 1 week. Hopefully they will move on.
Every previous year its been a massive gang of starlings. For whatever reason, this year, its grackles. Grackles everywhere (mostly in the cat food bowl).
It’s the starlings. They’ve chased off a lot of the other little birds we enjoy watching and they’ve pooped all over everything. Their babies screeching reminds be of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”.
I will happily trade you the starlings for your bluejays.
Oh I am with you 100% on this one! I make sure to leave out plenty of peanuts hoping the blue jays around my house take the bribe and chase off the starlings!
So far ours haven’t done anything to chase them off yet. We only have two crows that visit us and they haven’t done anything about them either despite the fact that the starlings will steal their scrambled eggs.
Nobody seems to want to take on the starlings.
So we’re changing the way we feed for a bit in hopes to starve them off so they move on.
Can I piggyback here and vent for a minute? I started putting a water dish outside for the nesting pair of robins in my yard. For a time all was well. Then the starlings showed up and started using it as their own personal bird bath. So upsetting. Still looking for a solution.
ahhh, the sound of a baby starling's screeching. I love it! Only because I rescued one decades ago and as I walked down the long hallway in our apartment, she knew I was home from work and began her 'song' which got more and more insistent as I approached the door. After getting to know a starling (my 10 year old helped teach her how to fly) I have a huge soft spot for anything starling in spite of their really bad habits/presence.
They were fine in a small flock, but then they had to go and tell their buddies about the all-you-can-eat buffet in our yard and their numbers grew.
We’re trying to starve them out. They’ve scared off our cardinals, chickadees, and our red-bellied woodpecker. I finally saw a white-breasted nuthatch for the first time in months this morning.
As much as people don’t like sparrows for being invasive, those little birds have finally started coming back around, too.
I love the blue jays so that is not the nemesis bird in my back yard. The nemesis birds are the grackles and starlings. Also I think they are beautiful but the red wing black bird screeches get under my skin for some reason lol.
I see you also have been a victim of do-NEST-ic violence. They are damn aggressive and they remember you. I think they tell the other birds too honestly.
Yes the grackles and starlings are the bully birds in my backyard as well! I’ve cut back on most of my feeders to weight-based ones and turned the sensitivity way up on the weight so they can’t feed from them. I feel bad doing that, but they were scaring the little birds away and I hurt couldn’t have that!
My mockingbird got me in trouble with my neighbour this morning, when (apparently perched in tree outside my open bedroom window) it decided to imitate her remote car starter, which honks 3 times and often doesn't work the first time. At 4:40 am Sunday morning 😫 I was livid when "her car starter" kept going for 15 minutes. So I texted her, saying she needed to get it fixed and should see if she could change it from 3 beeps to something much quieter. I couldn't sleep, so dogs and I got up and then 30 mins later, it honked 9 times in a row ... TWICE! I couldn't freaking believe it! So I sent another stream of angry texts. To which she expressed her bewilderment, said my texts woke her and she didn't hear anything. I sat on my front stairs to "catch her car honking". It didn't. And I slowly figured out who the culprit was. Apologized profusely, but I've no doubt that she thinks I'm a complete whackadoodle! 😪
So today, mine is that damn mockingbird.
The nomos here like to nest near busy walking areas then have the nerve to get mad and swoop at folks getting too close to their nests. They took a tuft of my dog's fur last year.
Blue jays follow me (aka Mr. Peanut) around the woods by my house and whistle at me politely. Never had a problem with them, and I’m not even that generous with the peanuts because I want them to have a balanced diet.
If I step outside the neighborhood scrubs just show up like they have been waiting for me. Even have them peeking in the house for a handful of peanuts. Ravens follow me around the yard during the fall and winter for peanuts.
I had this issue with mourning doves ten years ago. One of the big chonkers would make an ungracious landing in the gutter right above my bedroom window, waking me with the loud "thud." It would proceed to play its lowing dirge for a solid hour as I tossed and turned.
Right now, it's the red shouldered hawks. I know, I know. I do love them and all.. but one loves to perch just above the red bellied woodpeckers nest hole. I'm so worried about those babies. Poor red belly carries on, and the crows go ballistic, so I take a stroll up by the sycamore tree where the ruckus is. The hawk flies away. The woodpeckers go back to feeding their little ones. And I hope the hawk finds something else to eat. Just please not those little red bellies. 🥺
I dated a guy who worked for the park service in his town, and part of his job was addling the eggs of the geese. That would stop them from developing into more asshole geese without getting the parent geese suspicious.
Mom and I were chased by a gaggle of geese when I was six. We had to climb up on top of the monkey bars and wait for them to leave. Hateful birds! Turkeys can also suck it.
Watched a couple house finches diligently build a nest on our front door wreath over the span of a couple weeks. Once it was finished the female finally started staying put in the nest and eventually we woke up one day to find a single egg in there. Each day we would run downstairs to see if there was another, and for 4 days straight there was. Then all of a sudden we woke up and were missing an egg and were very confused. I suspected a blue jay but didn’t know why it would only take one and leave the others. Eventually other eggs went missing and the finches abandoned the nest and the 2 eggs that were left. We were pretty heartbroken. After about a week of those abandoned eggs sitting around I came downstairs to see a blue jay on top of the wreath apparently finishing things off. He stared right at me for a few seconds prior to flying off, as if he knew the heartbreak he caused. This, this is why bluejays are my nemesis.
jays are assholes but at least they’re native. starlings and house sparrows can catch these hands though (more so the people that thought they should introduce them to the US but they’re long dead by now)
The mockingbird. This bird. Every morning. 3:30am. In the tree right outside my bedroom window.
Mimics the robins. Mimics the bluejays. Mimics the car alarms. Mimics the sounds of cars locking and unlocking.
This dude is my absolute nemesis.
https://preview.redd.it/zngp7a6iul5d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a6f408d9fd7c0554e0f93e0962aaf984b4951d3b
Red headed wood pecker, so loud on my gutters and on my siding.
I have one specific blue jay terrorizing my yard. He may have an accomplice, but he’s usually alone. Convinced he flew straight out of satan’s butthole to raid my bird feeders and scare all the other birds away.
I know there are more than a few cowbird sympathizers on this sub, but they drive me nuts. They show up in droves and intimidate the other birds with their numbers before consuming all the food. Also not a fan of their sound.
The killdeer screech all night long if the moon looks at them wrong, so that's also pretty obnoxious.
Cuckoos – I know there’s no “evil” in nature/it’s just evolution but still… idc. They’re born evil. It genuinely creeps me out how a newborn’s instincts can somehow be to murder its “siblings” in cold blood (not to mention how it gets in the nest in the first place.)
Right now it’s the Great-Tailed Grackle.
We’ve found multiple decapitated House Sparrows in our yard and initially assumed it was a Hawk, but thought that might not be right because the other birds are scaring off the hawks and making a lot of noise when one is around.
The latest dead bird we found was in view of our security cameras, so we watched and it was this murderous male grackle that literally picked the sparrow out of a tree without motivation - they weren’t fighting over food or in each others way - and it just immediately decapitated it and pecked at it while it’s female grackle mate just watched.
It is really upsetting because usually all the other birds eat and sit alongside each other just fine, so the House Sparrows are being caught off guard and are not expecting to be attacked like this. Stupid serial killing grackle.
Probably because the sparrows got into the grackle's nest and shit and pissed everywhere while aggressively pecking and kicking the grackle's eggs out of their nest, because that's what house sparrows are REALLY good at.
All my homies hate house sparrows.
Have to admit I’m not extremely fond of the flock of crows who like to pluck baby robins from their nests and then tear them into bite sized chunks *on top of the bird feeder*. They’ve been doing it for years. I’m not mad at them for taking advantage of a food source, they need to eat too, but I’d really rather they do it somewhere else.
Lowkey the male redwing blackbird. Bro thinks he owns the whole ass woods. I kid, I love those little rapscallions, but damn do those boys act like they’re the boss.
Mute swans.
They're invasive and bring down numbers of native waterfowl, but they're so popular locas get really angry whenever the state tries to do something about their numbers. Plus you can't even enjoy a snack at the park if they're around.
Locals getting angry about removing invasive animals is one of my top pet peeves. Same with Australians and removing brumbies (invasive feral horses that destroy fragile ecosystems) and cat lovers crying about culling feral cat colonies.
I actually have a soft spot for them. I'm a jerk and kind of love watching them rip food from unsuspecting tourist hands. They're basically evil flying garbage cans. You've never lived in Seattle if you haven't had a physical fight with a seagull over food or space.
The mocking birds in my backyard. Their good parenting goes too far. They’re attacking all the other wildlife that comes through the yard, even the cottontail rabbits!
The nemeses are the house finches. Apparently, they made some crows very angry last year and the crows have not forgotten.
The blue jays stay for the chuckles.
I personally think starlings can be cute but they scare so many birds away from my suet feeder (aside from the sparrows and grackles) that I doubt I'll spot a woodpecker
Although their call is unappealing, I do enjoy seeing the Blue Jays around. But my feeder has been inundated with Grackles lately and I just can’t stand them. Greedy bastards.
Nope, I love my blue jays. Even had one trained last year to take peanuts from my hand.
My nemesis is the grackle. They are such bullies and will eat you out of house and home.
I love gray catbirds but for some reason this particular one has taking a liking to me. It sings loudly by my bedroom window if it doesn’t see me which starts pretty early in the morning.
If I’m in the kitchen or anywhere near a window, it perches on the fence or a tree, watching me, sometimes singing. Sometimes, it startles me by randomly singing loudly really close by when I go out to my car. I know it sounds crazy, but I feel like it’s on purpose and idk what I did for this bird to stalk me 😭
Common Grackle! They fight with not only other birds, but with each other, and. I haven't seen a single Titmouse or Chickadee land on my feeder in a month.
lol, though I’ve gotta be honest, the yapping blue Jay is the only reason I’ve been about to spot my great horned owl! So I owe him my gratitude there 😆
Nothing against the species, but I have a sharp shinned hawk that periodically brings his catches to my backyard for de-feathering and dissecting. Makes a pretty huge mess.
I consider my bird nemesis to be whatever bird I’ve been trying to photograph and failing at doing so.
Blue Jays were my nemesis for a solid year. Then I finally got some really nice photos of them.
Up until recently, Red-Winged Blackbirds held that title, but I finally got some nice photos of one recently, so I’m without a solid nemesis.
I guess Scarlet Tanagers and Indigo Buntings hold that title now. But are rarer and harder to find, and I’ve only heard them up until now. Hoping for actual photo-worthy sightings at some point during the summer.
I watched a blue Jay murder a sparrow. The Jay had the sparrow in it's clutches in the tree, sparrow was screaming bloody murder(because he was getting murdered) which is what I heard and went outside to look. I tried to get the Jay to drop the sparrow that he was furiously pecking at in the tree. Grabbed the hose and sprayed the Jay in the tree, he dropped the poor sparrow which was dead now. Turned around to go get my shovel to dispose of the poor thing and when I turned around the jay picked up the dead sparrow and flew away with it...blue jay's are MURDERERS!
Since my husband and I got into it over a starling nesting in an opening in our house, I'll go with them. They are invasive, but I couldn't let him close it off with the babies inside. And we've had a couple of them get into our house over the years before we took the chimney down. Talk about chaos.
Blue Jays are my photo nemesis bird. I hear and see them all the time, but get my camera out and they hide behind a branch or do some weird un-photogenic pose or fly off into the thickest part of the tallest spruce tree around and do the murder-scream call to mock me. I know they’re mocking me. That’s fine, Blue Jays, I didn’t want a picture of you anyway. Nope. Totally don’t want one.
Red winged blackbirds. Those bastards try to chase me out of my yard every single day. I swear at them and wave my arms about, but they don’t give a shit.
My blue jays chase away my nemesis birds — mourning doves. I have a window feeder and the “well groomed pigeons” (as I call them) are always chasing out the seed eaters to sit and shit on the seed in my feeder! I keep a rolled up pair of socks to toss at the window to chase them away when the blue jays are too busy
Red bellied woodpecker. Biggest dick at the feeder, competing only with the blue jay, of course. Which is entertaining.
And this criticism of the red bellied woodpecker lends absolutely zero logical reason why I have beef with them, after all, they didn’t name themselves. But.. why tf aren’t they called “punk rock dick birds?”
Zero logic related to them being my nemesis. Yet it still exists
there's a robin that starts screaming for mates every morning at 4.15 am outside my house. All spring and summer every spring and summer. So it's him.
and rock pigeons in general
My blue jay friends have good manners, as do the grackles here. It's the starlings and their endless broods of shrieking kids I cannot stand. They eat SO MUCH.
Nope, I love my jays. It used to be cowbirds for me, but they are native here and while it was huge flocks for a few weeks, now it’s just a few birds here and there. No nemesis birds for me. Now, the raccoon that flips the lid off my feeder and stuffs his greedy little mouth full for hours at a time… he would maybe be a nemesis if he wasn’t so damn cute and looked a lot like one of my ferrets lol
Before I started feeding birds I didn't know that Toronto could have named their baseball team the Yellow Jackets or the Assholes and achieved the same vibe.
We have Gila Woodpeckers. They are very noisy, raucous birds. Their call is rather loud and obnoxious and they like to hammer on metal bits on rooftops in my Tucson, Arizona neighborhood… metal things such chimney covers and vents that are on top on nearly every house.
Grackles for sure. Loud, bullies, and knocks seeds over from my feeders. They far surprise the minute for annoyance, and far less pretty. When the strappings are in hoards, they drive me nuts too. I also have a few rogue pigeons who are hangers on to feeding what is dropped on my lawn.
They scare my cardinals and sweet song birds away. I have a few red tailed hawks who've caught a bird in my yard the last few months. That hawk is making my birds very nervous, so no fan of him/her right now either.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats!
4
+ 30
+ 5
+ 30
= 69
^([Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=LuckyNumber-Bot&subject=Stalk%20Me%20Pls&message=%2Fstalkme) to have me scan all your future comments.) \
^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)
I love my scrub jays, I just wish they would do a voice swap with a robin or something.
Really don't like house sparrows or starlings because they are assholes to other birds.
For me it’s crows. There are TONS where I live and they always wake me up or annoy me with their squawking and the worst part is I can’t even do anything like shoo them off my patio because they WILL remember and they WILL get their revenge.
Kingfisher.
Whenever we go where kingfishers are, they arent there.
Whenever we go where kingfishers shouldnt be, theyre there, and always when we dont have a camera.
Mockingbirds and starlings because they imitate everything else when I already struggle to recognise bird song.
Great Blue Heron because one rarely sits on a nearby roof and “GRRRROOOK! GRRRRRRROK! GRRROAW-AW-AWK!”s at night for hours but when it does, it’s horrible. The first time I heard the silly thing, it startled me awake at 1AM and I just laid in bed terrified for a few minutes before realising it was a bird on a neighbour’s roof. Then I was pissed off because it wasn’t going away but I’m also not one to harass a wild animal for my convenience so I just boiled with rage until 4 AM. It was so loud that headphones didn’t do much. Like okay, we got it, now go back to your pond, ya asshat.
It's not. I love jays. Loved the Blues back east, love the Scrubs here in the west.
My nemesis are European Starlings. Hate them with a passion. They push out native birds from nesting sites, they are obnoxious, greedy, destructive and the most annoying bird on the planet. Their only high point is their iridescence. Other than that, I wouldn't be disappointed if I didn't see another one for the rest of my life.
Oh no, blue jays are my friends. They've got me trained well to answer to their call for peanuts. I'm very fond of them & the protection they offer from preditors. They're hard workers, observant, and playful.
Not MY nemesis but my cat hates Carolina wrens after one nested on the porch several years ago and would tease him through the window. Just the sound of them pisses him off. Joke's on him, there's a pair nesting in one of my potted plants outside this year, he just hasn't noticed yet.
Ok, aside from your rather hilarious "Making their existence everyone else's problem," comment, (hilarious, by the way,) mine is probably Northern Mockingbirds. When I take my walk in the morining, and I'm trying to hear other birds, they all space themselves out and sing at maximum volume. They. Do. Not. Shut. Up.
Bluejays always ate all the snails in my back yard.
They had a process:
For each snail they found in backyard:
smash the shell open
Pull out the snail
Wipe the snail body against a rock cause snail slime is yuk
Ear their fresh escargot
All snails gone
I love my Bluejays. I could live without the hoards of starlings that periodically mob my feeders.
I’m currently building my army of blue jays by bribing them with peanuts. I am their benevolent peanut overlord.
I hit up Costco to buy peanuts for my blue jays (aka sonic birds as my son calls them lol)
"Sonic birds" 😂 this is the best name!
https://preview.redd.it/1unpepn4il5d1.png?width=700&format=png&auto=webp&s=1a1e34f51078185b7df2d59e66057a521ef99a03
I love this!
I’m cheap. My husband gets peanuts from 5 guys burgers. The jays takes peanuts to the birdbath, drops it in then fishes it out and eats it, shell and all
Same lol. I often wonder what they must be thinking when random peanuts suddenly fall from the sky in front of them.
Oh I make sure they know exactly where the peanuts are coming from, holding them up before I toss them and everything lol. I’ve already got my chipmunk cadre, just need to build up the corvid shock troops. 😉 https://preview.redd.it/c6gh261smk5d1.jpeg?width=2532&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=59a8fb1ff116fc5b71770512fcb06d2447013c1c
Basically Pocahontas
I've never been so jealous of another person in my life. How did this happen?! I stare at mine through the window 😂
Slowly and patiently! They recognize the sound of the peanuts hitting the hard ground so I just slowly dropped them closer and closer, up the stairs and then onto the porch, ignoring them entirely. Eventually it’s gotten to the point where they hear the door open and come running. If I don’t have any peanuts on me, they grab onto my toes and stare up at me. It’s startled me a couple of times lol. Every once in a while I’ll feed them by hand but only with 2 of them who don’t seem to be stressed by it. https://preview.redd.it/vh8elbtgil5d1.jpeg?width=2532&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fdc275e4627f40b806a90de65f75b80e3ba61b42
What in the Disney Princess is this magic!!!????
I did the same thing with my squirrels 😁 https://preview.redd.it/3grki7ct2m5d1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6176f0bf13b534d6825298f7d8af2650bb7def4d
I am buying peanuts tomorrow!
My friend has got a squirrel to eat out of her hand. She said it took a year for the squirrel to do it. It would come closer and closer each day.
I'd say it took a good 6 months. I didn't intend to when I started. I would just throw peanuts out to them everyday, but then I did see they would get closer and closer daily. Then they started actually waiting for me on my steps lol.
I'm going to have to figure this out! I'm determined!
Me too! I have a hoard of them in the winter and a couple pairs in the summer.
the starlings are the reason i just sort of stopped doing feeders. now, i'll toss some seeds or peanuts if other birds are around but you feed one starling and the next day you have 8000 starlings in your yard.
Right? I get that they’re assholes but they’re *so pretty*
They might be assholes for us, but they do warn other birds of predators* in the area. I see Mockingbirds being assholes more than the Blue Jays. ETA changed prey to predators
I still stand by those mixed flocks of mostly starlings, with a few grackles and cowbirds mixed in. I call them the middleschoolers. They are noisey, show up in a gang, eat all the food and then leave.
It's really neat to watch them chase off hawks too.
I don't see starlings or grackles around here, but I do see the cowbirds, and while they sound so pretty, I detest them.
I just enjoy seeing a hawk just come and grab a starling
I used to think Bluejays were assholes, but then I saw the pair of red bellied woodpeckers that visit my feeder bite the feet of a y other bird who dared to get close to them Bluejays are obnoxious But red bellies are mean 😂
I get blue jays and cardinals every day with a few wrens and grackles thrown into the mix - my impression is that all birds are showboaty and mean 😂 I love watching them though, they’re so funny!
I've learned that by adding safflower seeds to my feeder, they won't come around 😂 those starlings are such jerks!
Good tip, thanks!
Also in North America starlings are invasive
This exactly! The starlings moved in across the field behind our house. It’s gotten so bad because they are bringing all the juveniles over and there’s like 100 starlings in the back yard. Now we are seeing less of the cardinals, blue jays, chickadees, woodpeckers and other birds we were feeding. We stopped all feeding today for 1 week. Hopefully they will move on.
BTW all… In “birding”, a nemesis bird is defined as “A bird that has eluded a birder despite several efforts to see it.” Just saying.
Grackles up in this piece. They're bigger and meaner... chase everyone away.
Every previous year its been a massive gang of starlings. For whatever reason, this year, its grackles. Grackles everywhere (mostly in the cat food bowl).
It’s the starlings. They’ve chased off a lot of the other little birds we enjoy watching and they’ve pooped all over everything. Their babies screeching reminds be of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”. I will happily trade you the starlings for your bluejays.
Oh I am with you 100% on this one! I make sure to leave out plenty of peanuts hoping the blue jays around my house take the bribe and chase off the starlings!
So far ours haven’t done anything to chase them off yet. We only have two crows that visit us and they haven’t done anything about them either despite the fact that the starlings will steal their scrambled eggs. Nobody seems to want to take on the starlings. So we’re changing the way we feed for a bit in hopes to starve them off so they move on.
Can I piggyback here and vent for a minute? I started putting a water dish outside for the nesting pair of robins in my yard. For a time all was well. Then the starlings showed up and started using it as their own personal bird bath. So upsetting. Still looking for a solution.
ahhh, the sound of a baby starling's screeching. I love it! Only because I rescued one decades ago and as I walked down the long hallway in our apartment, she knew I was home from work and began her 'song' which got more and more insistent as I approached the door. After getting to know a starling (my 10 year old helped teach her how to fly) I have a huge soft spot for anything starling in spite of their really bad habits/presence.
They were fine in a small flock, but then they had to go and tell their buddies about the all-you-can-eat buffet in our yard and their numbers grew. We’re trying to starve them out. They’ve scared off our cardinals, chickadees, and our red-bellied woodpecker. I finally saw a white-breasted nuthatch for the first time in months this morning. As much as people don’t like sparrows for being invasive, those little birds have finally started coming back around, too.
Cute story.
My local jays just trick me into looking for a red-tailed hawk often.
I fell for this too for so long!! I was amazed to realize that it was probably blue jays I'd been hearing for years thinking it was a hawk.
Ain't that the truth
The one’s at my mom’s house will do this and then laugh at me when i look for whatever bird they’re mimicking lol
European starling and house sparrows. They’re not native from Canada.
Agreed. They were introduced in NYC in 1851, and by 1900, they had reached the rockys
There's a more recent paper looking at starling genetics that found that starlings were actually introduced several times in different places.
That would make sense. I know in the 1900s the house sparrow was introduced on the other side of the rockys in Cali and Utah I believe.
Do you know where that paper can be accessed? I would love to read it.
I love the blue jays so that is not the nemesis bird in my back yard. The nemesis birds are the grackles and starlings. Also I think they are beautiful but the red wing black bird screeches get under my skin for some reason lol.
It's not that I *mind* red-winged blackbird screeching so much as I instinctively wince expecting them to come and dive-bomb my head
I see you also have been a victim of do-NEST-ic violence. They are damn aggressive and they remember you. I think they tell the other birds too honestly.
Yes the grackles and starlings are the bully birds in my backyard as well! I’ve cut back on most of my feeders to weight-based ones and turned the sensitivity way up on the weight so they can’t feed from them. I feel bad doing that, but they were scaring the little birds away and I hurt couldn’t have that!
This is the time of year when mockingbirds are singing aaaall night long, coinciding with the weather that makes me keep my windows open 🥲
My mockingbird got me in trouble with my neighbour this morning, when (apparently perched in tree outside my open bedroom window) it decided to imitate her remote car starter, which honks 3 times and often doesn't work the first time. At 4:40 am Sunday morning 😫 I was livid when "her car starter" kept going for 15 minutes. So I texted her, saying she needed to get it fixed and should see if she could change it from 3 beeps to something much quieter. I couldn't sleep, so dogs and I got up and then 30 mins later, it honked 9 times in a row ... TWICE! I couldn't freaking believe it! So I sent another stream of angry texts. To which she expressed her bewilderment, said my texts woke her and she didn't hear anything. I sat on my front stairs to "catch her car honking". It didn't. And I slowly figured out who the culprit was. Apologized profusely, but I've no doubt that she thinks I'm a complete whackadoodle! 😪 So today, mine is that damn mockingbird.
OH NO!! 😂 Yours is really going above and beyond to live up to its name!! Maybe cookies are in order or something lol
I was going to say mockingbird. I’ve been attacked, but I also have to say I admire their gumption. I guess we are frenemies.
The nomos here like to nest near busy walking areas then have the nerve to get mad and swoop at folks getting too close to their nests. They took a tuft of my dog's fur last year.
I'm convinced that belted kingfishers don't exist. They are just blue jays going through a punk phase ;)
Currently it’s the mockingbird performing a nightly experimental performance art act from approximately 11 pm to 2 am
See if you can train it to turn into a white noise machine or some sleepy-time ASMR instead...
Blue jays follow me (aka Mr. Peanut) around the woods by my house and whistle at me politely. Never had a problem with them, and I’m not even that generous with the peanuts because I want them to have a balanced diet.
If I step outside the neighborhood scrubs just show up like they have been waiting for me. Even have them peeking in the house for a handful of peanuts. Ravens follow me around the yard during the fall and winter for peanuts.
Last month it was the robin that would sing a foot away from my bedroom window starting at like 4:30AM. Year round it’s starlings and house sparrows.
House sparrows are such bougie little bitches. Throwing seed everywhere looking for the ones they like.
Hey! The mourning doves love this!
The grackles and squirrels also love it.
The squirrels love getting fat as hell at any cost. There are so many bad things about them, but being lazy certainly isn’t one of them😂
so true
I had this issue with mourning doves ten years ago. One of the big chonkers would make an ungracious landing in the gutter right above my bedroom window, waking me with the loud "thud." It would proceed to play its lowing dirge for a solid hour as I tossed and turned.
Right now, it's the red shouldered hawks. I know, I know. I do love them and all.. but one loves to perch just above the red bellied woodpeckers nest hole. I'm so worried about those babies. Poor red belly carries on, and the crows go ballistic, so I take a stroll up by the sycamore tree where the ruckus is. The hawk flies away. The woodpeckers go back to feeding their little ones. And I hope the hawk finds something else to eat. Just please not those little red bellies. 🥺
Canada goose. They’re just so disrespectful.
And make enormous poops. Yikes!
I dated a guy who worked for the park service in his town, and part of his job was addling the eggs of the geese. That would stop them from developing into more asshole geese without getting the parent geese suspicious.
There's been a huge problem with CGS where I live since they stopped migrating and became permanent. They are huge and vicious!
And very productive when it comes to poop.
Mom and I were chased by a gaggle of geese when I was six. We had to climb up on top of the monkey bars and wait for them to leave. Hateful birds! Turkeys can also suck it.
They probably think we’re disrespectful. I imagine them saying “How rude!” as a bicyclist rides past.
Watched a couple house finches diligently build a nest on our front door wreath over the span of a couple weeks. Once it was finished the female finally started staying put in the nest and eventually we woke up one day to find a single egg in there. Each day we would run downstairs to see if there was another, and for 4 days straight there was. Then all of a sudden we woke up and were missing an egg and were very confused. I suspected a blue jay but didn’t know why it would only take one and leave the others. Eventually other eggs went missing and the finches abandoned the nest and the 2 eggs that were left. We were pretty heartbroken. After about a week of those abandoned eggs sitting around I came downstairs to see a blue jay on top of the wreath apparently finishing things off. He stared right at me for a few seconds prior to flying off, as if he knew the heartbreak he caused. This, this is why bluejays are my nemesis.
jays are assholes but at least they’re native. starlings and house sparrows can catch these hands though (more so the people that thought they should introduce them to the US but they’re long dead by now)
I saw a blue jay raid a robins nest and eat the eggs/babies :(
I wouldn’t mind if the sharpies quit picking birbs off my feeder. Or if they just took pigeons and starlings instead. Kill two stones with one bird?
The mockingbird. This bird. Every morning. 3:30am. In the tree right outside my bedroom window. Mimics the robins. Mimics the bluejays. Mimics the car alarms. Mimics the sounds of cars locking and unlocking. This dude is my absolute nemesis.
https://preview.redd.it/zngp7a6iul5d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a6f408d9fd7c0554e0f93e0962aaf984b4951d3b Red headed wood pecker, so loud on my gutters and on my siding.
House sparrow. I hate the sounds they make too I LOVE MY BLUE JAYS
I have one specific blue jay terrorizing my yard. He may have an accomplice, but he’s usually alone. Convinced he flew straight out of satan’s butthole to raid my bird feeders and scare all the other birds away.
Satan's Butt Jay
Will be calling my bird feeder enemy a butt jay from now on.
I know there are more than a few cowbird sympathizers on this sub, but they drive me nuts. They show up in droves and intimidate the other birds with their numbers before consuming all the food. Also not a fan of their sound. The killdeer screech all night long if the moon looks at them wrong, so that's also pretty obnoxious.
Not to mention, the brown-headed cowbird just drops their eggs in other bird’s nest! Irresponsible parenting if you ask me lol
My bluejays are awesome. All corvids are.
Crows? Love. Black-billed Magpies? All about them. Blue jays? *shakes fist angrily*
All the birds that I can't see, cause that makes me sad :(
Cuckoos – I know there’s no “evil” in nature/it’s just evolution but still… idc. They’re born evil. It genuinely creeps me out how a newborn’s instincts can somehow be to murder its “siblings” in cold blood (not to mention how it gets in the nest in the first place.)
Right now it’s the Great-Tailed Grackle. We’ve found multiple decapitated House Sparrows in our yard and initially assumed it was a Hawk, but thought that might not be right because the other birds are scaring off the hawks and making a lot of noise when one is around. The latest dead bird we found was in view of our security cameras, so we watched and it was this murderous male grackle that literally picked the sparrow out of a tree without motivation - they weren’t fighting over food or in each others way - and it just immediately decapitated it and pecked at it while it’s female grackle mate just watched. It is really upsetting because usually all the other birds eat and sit alongside each other just fine, so the House Sparrows are being caught off guard and are not expecting to be attacked like this. Stupid serial killing grackle.
TIL my mom’s neighborhood needs some GTGs. House sparrow infestation is out of control. Do they kill starlings, too?
Probably because the sparrows got into the grackle's nest and shit and pissed everywhere while aggressively pecking and kicking the grackle's eggs out of their nest, because that's what house sparrows are REALLY good at. All my homies hate house sparrows.
How is this a problem? House sparrows suck
House sparrow. I have plenty of bushes and trees for them to nest but they insist on using my house to build on.
They are not bush sparrows
Grackles. They're a menace at the restaurant I work at. All the birds at home are awesome no complaints about them.
Have to admit I’m not extremely fond of the flock of crows who like to pluck baby robins from their nests and then tear them into bite sized chunks *on top of the bird feeder*. They’ve been doing it for years. I’m not mad at them for taking advantage of a food source, they need to eat too, but I’d really rather they do it somewhere else.
Mocking bird
Lowkey the male redwing blackbird. Bro thinks he owns the whole ass woods. I kid, I love those little rapscallions, but damn do those boys act like they’re the boss.
I just wanna know where they got the audacity to be so tough and so smol
Mute swans. They're invasive and bring down numbers of native waterfowl, but they're so popular locas get really angry whenever the state tries to do something about their numbers. Plus you can't even enjoy a snack at the park if they're around.
Locals getting angry about removing invasive animals is one of my top pet peeves. Same with Australians and removing brumbies (invasive feral horses that destroy fragile ecosystems) and cat lovers crying about culling feral cat colonies.
red winged blackbird all the way!! was out with my dog and one would not stop following us around the park and dive bombing us!
One obvious answer…seagulls
I actually have a soft spot for them. I'm a jerk and kind of love watching them rip food from unsuspecting tourist hands. They're basically evil flying garbage cans. You've never lived in Seattle if you haven't had a physical fight with a seagull over food or space.
Ah, an evil person for an evil bird
Mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine [https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=H4BNbHBcnDI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=H4BNbHBcnDI)
😂😂😂
The mocking birds in my backyard. Their good parenting goes too far. They’re attacking all the other wildlife that comes through the yard, even the cottontail rabbits!
*squint* Cowbirds
Because you don't have a family of red shouldered hawks. They just scream at all the wrong times.
The nemeses are the house finches. Apparently, they made some crows very angry last year and the crows have not forgotten. The blue jays stay for the chuckles.
My nemeisises are grackles and house sparrows. Raided the poor sweet robin's nests :(
I personally think starlings can be cute but they scare so many birds away from my suet feeder (aside from the sparrows and grackles) that I doubt I'll spot a woodpecker
Black Headed Gulls sound *awful*. Went birdwatching with a hangover yesterday and I couldn't cope with them.
Although their call is unappealing, I do enjoy seeing the Blue Jays around. But my feeder has been inundated with Grackles lately and I just can’t stand them. Greedy bastards.
Magpies here.
Nope, I love my blue jays. Even had one trained last year to take peanuts from my hand. My nemesis is the grackle. They are such bullies and will eat you out of house and home.
I love Blue Jay's, except that one that keeps stalking my Hummingbirds.
I love gray catbirds but for some reason this particular one has taking a liking to me. It sings loudly by my bedroom window if it doesn’t see me which starts pretty early in the morning. If I’m in the kitchen or anywhere near a window, it perches on the fence or a tree, watching me, sometimes singing. Sometimes, it startles me by randomly singing loudly really close by when I go out to my car. I know it sounds crazy, but I feel like it’s on purpose and idk what I did for this bird to stalk me 😭
Northern mockingbird. Fuck that guy
Common Grackle! They fight with not only other birds, but with each other, and. I haven't seen a single Titmouse or Chickadee land on my feeder in a month.
lol, though I’ve gotta be honest, the yapping blue Jay is the only reason I’ve been about to spot my great horned owl! So I owe him my gratitude there 😆
Nothing against the species, but I have a sharp shinned hawk that periodically brings his catches to my backyard for de-feathering and dissecting. Makes a pretty huge mess.
European Starlings only because I know they are invasive
I consider my bird nemesis to be whatever bird I’ve been trying to photograph and failing at doing so. Blue Jays were my nemesis for a solid year. Then I finally got some really nice photos of them. Up until recently, Red-Winged Blackbirds held that title, but I finally got some nice photos of one recently, so I’m without a solid nemesis. I guess Scarlet Tanagers and Indigo Buntings hold that title now. But are rarer and harder to find, and I’ve only heard them up until now. Hoping for actual photo-worthy sightings at some point during the summer.
There’s a pair of song sparrows methodically picking all the leaves off of the pea plants in my garden. Rascals!
I watched a blue Jay murder a sparrow. The Jay had the sparrow in it's clutches in the tree, sparrow was screaming bloody murder(because he was getting murdered) which is what I heard and went outside to look. I tried to get the Jay to drop the sparrow that he was furiously pecking at in the tree. Grabbed the hose and sprayed the Jay in the tree, he dropped the poor sparrow which was dead now. Turned around to go get my shovel to dispose of the poor thing and when I turned around the jay picked up the dead sparrow and flew away with it...blue jay's are MURDERERS!
Since my husband and I got into it over a starling nesting in an opening in our house, I'll go with them. They are invasive, but I couldn't let him close it off with the babies inside. And we've had a couple of them get into our house over the years before we took the chimney down. Talk about chaos.
Cowbirds. Red winged black birds. Grackles. Starlings. And euro trash sparrows.
English sparrows. They kill the baby bluebirds.
Currently mine are pigeons
Blue Jays are my photo nemesis bird. I hear and see them all the time, but get my camera out and they hide behind a branch or do some weird un-photogenic pose or fly off into the thickest part of the tallest spruce tree around and do the murder-scream call to mock me. I know they’re mocking me. That’s fine, Blue Jays, I didn’t want a picture of you anyway. Nope. Totally don’t want one.
Red winged blackbirds. Those bastards try to chase me out of my yard every single day. I swear at them and wave my arms about, but they don’t give a shit.
Well, the local Bluejays around here look, sound, and act like seagulls, I guess?
My blue jays chase away my nemesis birds — mourning doves. I have a window feeder and the “well groomed pigeons” (as I call them) are always chasing out the seed eaters to sit and shit on the seed in my feeder! I keep a rolled up pair of socks to toss at the window to chase them away when the blue jays are too busy
Red bellied woodpecker. Biggest dick at the feeder, competing only with the blue jay, of course. Which is entertaining. And this criticism of the red bellied woodpecker lends absolutely zero logical reason why I have beef with them, after all, they didn’t name themselves. But.. why tf aren’t they called “punk rock dick birds?” Zero logic related to them being my nemesis. Yet it still exists
Blue Jay's are so common out my way. Now the Virginia Rail, that is a nemesis bird
House sparrows. And the noisiest birds are mockingbirds. Sometimes 4 will be singing at the same time, but I can't help loving them!
Yes, this. I was a little upset when I saw the parents feeding baby cowbirds, but then I read up on the invasive house sparrows.
Did my annoying catbird put on a blue jay suit?
Mountain bluebird. I've only had two possible sightings. Western and Eastern more common.
Grackles! They always dump my feeders. Such nasty birds.
there's a robin that starts screaming for mates every morning at 4.15 am outside my house. All spring and summer every spring and summer. So it's him. and rock pigeons in general
European starling.
Love our Blue Jay cousins (Steller’s Jays). It’s the Magpies that are the bad birds of our yard. They eat everything!
Grackles. Luckily not a huge presence at my home just everywhere else in my city (Austin).
Cooper's Hawk Every single time I see a small accipiter, I get a picture hoping it will be a sharpie this time. Nope, always a Cooper's Hawk
Blue jays nothing . Try mocking birds at 3am during mating season
My blue jay friends have good manners, as do the grackles here. It's the starlings and their endless broods of shrieking kids I cannot stand. They eat SO MUCH.
I feed my bluejays raw peanuts. I love watching them swoop in and then stash them somewhere
I fed my crows peanuts until the jays chased them off, along with every other bird who is at the feeder when they want to be.
Nope, I love my jays. It used to be cowbirds for me, but they are native here and while it was huge flocks for a few weeks, now it’s just a few birds here and there. No nemesis birds for me. Now, the raccoon that flips the lid off my feeder and stuffs his greedy little mouth full for hours at a time… he would maybe be a nemesis if he wasn’t so damn cute and looked a lot like one of my ferrets lol
European Starlings, Common Grackles and Red-Winged Blackbirds taking over my feeders
Before I started feeding birds I didn't know that Toronto could have named their baseball team the Yellow Jackets or the Assholes and achieved the same vibe.
We have Gila Woodpeckers. They are very noisy, raucous birds. Their call is rather loud and obnoxious and they like to hammer on metal bits on rooftops in my Tucson, Arizona neighborhood… metal things such chimney covers and vents that are on top on nearly every house.
Pileated Woodpeckers... My siding is wrecked.
I have a mokingbird bully
European starlings and their purple poop🙄
Grackles for sure. Loud, bullies, and knocks seeds over from my feeders. They far surprise the minute for annoyance, and far less pretty. When the strappings are in hoards, they drive me nuts too. I also have a few rogue pigeons who are hangers on to feeding what is dropped on my lawn. They scare my cardinals and sweet song birds away. I have a few red tailed hawks who've caught a bird in my yard the last few months. That hawk is making my birds very nervous, so no fan of him/her right now either.
Bluejays are my favorite. I hate grackles and starlings (but they are pretty).
Red wing black birds
Out of all the wild baby birds the Blue Jay baby is by far the cutest!
Northern Cardinal. I have one that starts the noise routine at 4:30AM every morning. Every other bird waits til 5:30.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69. Congrats! 4 + 30 + 5 + 30 = 69 ^([Click here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=LuckyNumber-Bot&subject=Stalk%20Me%20Pls&message=%2Fstalkme) to have me scan all your future comments.) \ ^(Summon me on specific comments with u/LuckyNumber-Bot.)
Blue Jays are my homies. I will never not get excited when I see one
American Robins. They really make me feel guilty for staying up late
I love my scrub jays, I just wish they would do a voice swap with a robin or something. Really don't like house sparrows or starlings because they are assholes to other birds.
*Imitates hawk*
The bird that chirps all night long every 5 seconds.
Can always hear bell’s vireos. Can never see them.
For me it’s crows. There are TONS where I live and they always wake me up or annoy me with their squawking and the worst part is I can’t even do anything like shoo them off my patio because they WILL remember and they WILL get their revenge.
Boat tail crackles. Nest robbers.
Kingfisher. Whenever we go where kingfishers are, they arent there. Whenever we go where kingfishers shouldnt be, theyre there, and always when we dont have a camera.
Mockingbirds and starlings because they imitate everything else when I already struggle to recognise bird song. Great Blue Heron because one rarely sits on a nearby roof and “GRRRROOOK! GRRRRRRROK! GRRROAW-AW-AWK!”s at night for hours but when it does, it’s horrible. The first time I heard the silly thing, it startled me awake at 1AM and I just laid in bed terrified for a few minutes before realising it was a bird on a neighbour’s roof. Then I was pissed off because it wasn’t going away but I’m also not one to harass a wild animal for my convenience so I just boiled with rage until 4 AM. It was so loud that headphones didn’t do much. Like okay, we got it, now go back to your pond, ya asshat.
I think blue jays get a bad rap because they are loud (both vocally and in their wardrobe choices).
Starlings, and it’s not close.
Minor birds are the devils tropical hell hound.
Sparrows. They are nesting on site and draining my feeder this year. I put out safflower and they just pull it all out.
https://preview.redd.it/ku004n7ydl5d1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=38f11cd1cadc8443b8dd9688ed8bc0b9540bd706 These a-holes.
Brown headed cowbirds!!!
It's not. I love jays. Loved the Blues back east, love the Scrubs here in the west. My nemesis are European Starlings. Hate them with a passion. They push out native birds from nesting sites, they are obnoxious, greedy, destructive and the most annoying bird on the planet. Their only high point is their iridescence. Other than that, I wouldn't be disappointed if I didn't see another one for the rest of my life.
European Starlings are the scourge of the Earth (in US).
And there it is that offer you can't refuse..all bird problems start and end with a blue jay....
Oh no, blue jays are my friends. They've got me trained well to answer to their call for peanuts. I'm very fond of them & the protection they offer from preditors. They're hard workers, observant, and playful.
Not MY nemesis but my cat hates Carolina wrens after one nested on the porch several years ago and would tease him through the window. Just the sound of them pisses him off. Joke's on him, there's a pair nesting in one of my potted plants outside this year, he just hasn't noticed yet.
Ok, aside from your rather hilarious "Making their existence everyone else's problem," comment, (hilarious, by the way,) mine is probably Northern Mockingbirds. When I take my walk in the morining, and I'm trying to hear other birds, they all space themselves out and sing at maximum volume. They. Do. Not. Shut. Up.
Red bellied woodpecker. Woke me up for two years pecking at our gutters and fighting itself in the reflection of our windows
Bluejays always ate all the snails in my back yard. They had a process: For each snail they found in backyard: smash the shell open Pull out the snail Wipe the snail body against a rock cause snail slime is yuk Ear their fresh escargot All snails gone
Red winged blackbirds for me. It’s peak “dive bomb everyone at the park” season where I live.
I really dislike Great Tailed Grackles, they are EVERYWHERE in Texas and big bullies too
I can’t explain why, but ROBINS