Don't Want No Scrub (Jay)s

Post date: 2026-06-04 08:46:47

My mom's bird feeder has become overrun with California scrub-jays. Is there a way to deter them without also deterring other bird species?

I got my mom a Bird Buddy bird feeder for Mother's Day. (If you're not familiar, it's a bird feeder that takes photos and video clips of the birds that visit and sends them to your phone). She added me as a user so I can see the photos/videos too, and it's been a lot of fun for both of us.

Disappointingly, though, literally every bird that's come to the feeder has been a California scrub-jay. I wasn't surprised to see a lot of them, because they're very common in our area (California Central Valley). I don't even dislike them — I think their feathers are beautiful! But I know for a fact that there are plenty of other native bird species around here, and we were hoping to get more of a variety. Scrub-jays are a territorial species, so our theory is that they're driving the other birds away.

We tried putting out foods that scrub-jays don't like: safflower seeds and dried cranberries so far. The good news is that we haven't gotten a scrub-jay visitor in over a week...but the bad news is that no other birds have shown up either. I'm not sure if that's because the other birds also don't like those foods, or if the scrub-jays have claimed the feeder as their territory and won't let the other birds near it with or without food.

Our other idea is to move the feeder to a different part of the yard. If that doesn't work...I don't know what we'll do. Anyone have any other suggestions? Different foods we could try, maybe? This was a rather expensive gift and I know my mom was really excited about it, so I'd like to help her solve this if I can.

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