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I wasnt sure at first how this might work, but its a winner for me. Small birds that use it are Goldfinch and Chickadee, house finches have difficulty but sometimes use it. Eliminates house sparrows and starlings. One flaw I find is that removing the bottom for cleaning has 4 prongs that you have to be careful or one might break off as one did on mine. Push all the prongs in to release its a little tricky . Other than that I highly recommend this feeder. I have to say that goldfinches love it. At first I mixed black oil sunflower seed with sunflower hearts. Mixed there is mess from the shells but now I only use the hearts, no mess, the hearts are pricey but worth it in my mind.I've owned three of these -- and two have broken after minimal usage. The seed dish is connected to the feed hopper by four plastic snap tabs which weaken and quickly break after a very few separations (for cleaning). If you use this feeder, you'll be replacing it yearly. At its price, that might be okay -- but it's certainly not a good situation.I fill it with safflower seed -- titmice & chickadees come regularly, cardinals and ground feeders will feed off the dropped seed. I have grackles, but they aren't interested. House sparrows, however, are a plague. Since the distance between the seed dish and hopper is tight, the house sparrows sweep the seed out of the seed dish with their beaks rather than try to stuff their fat heads down into it. They'd empty the feeder in two days -- strewing most of the seed on the ground, since they're really just looking for sunflower or other, tastier seeds. I modify the feeder by attaching a stainless steel hose clamp around the hopper base at the seed ports. This reduces the seed opening to a minimum and minimizes the amount of seed that is available to fill the seed dish. The seed dish remains thinly filled and makes it much more difficult for the sparrows to sweep -- but titmice, nuthatches & chickadees cling, pick out a single seed, fly away, dine & then return. The house sparrows now work harder but with much less success & mess. In a New England August they can still overwhelm it with sheer numbers, but it takes them much longer to do a lot of damage & for most of the rest of the year they are off trying to find easier pickings.It's made of four pieces of molded plastic, and hints atthe potential for a well thought out, inexpensive and high quality feeder. This one, alas, is apparently a commodity meant to maximize profit rather than effectively achieve a serious design/manufacturing goal. Higher quality plastic in the hopper, or a revised hopper-to-seed dish connection would be an easy fix for the breakage issue. A slight change in the hopper mold would reduce the seed port openings & limit the seed availability.I keep thinking I should send one to Peter Kilham & ask him to make it right. Then I remember how long it's been since I listened to Bert & I & totally lose my train of thought.All plastic and one fell off the hook and broke into pieces.I purchased this feeder in 2012 & just refilled it again today. Since we live at 5800', the sun can be very strong. Most plastic items do not last long...they usually dry out & break. Not this little feeder! Works great. Highly recommendIt’s a good size and sturdy, however, taking the lid off to refill is quite difficult. Lining up the holes right takes several tries . Works great for keeping bigger birds out of the seed, so the wrens are happy again!Just received this and put it out with sunflower seeds and the House Finches were quick to fly up to the feeder but unable to hang on so they no longer sit there and empty the feeder. Nuthatches and Chickadees took to it right away and have no problem clining on to get seed. Will have to see how durable it is as it's all plastic, even the eye for hanging it is plastic. But for what I wanted it seems to do the job of keeping the House Finches from eating all the food.Update---- After several days of the feeder being out, the House Finches are adapting to this new feeder so that they now cling on like the Chickadees. Fortunately they can't hold on for long and so the feeder empties a lot slower than my other feeder. Was hoping to disuade them completely but I guess I should be happy they can't perch there and eat all day until the feeder is empty.Great for clinging birds!This is the best designed feeder for clinging birds that I've been able to find. It is far superior in quality and ease of cleaning compared to the Becks Chickadee Bird Feeder. This Songbird Essentials "Clingers Only" feeder is very easy to open or completely disassemble (if desired) for cleaning and easy to fill. It is made of sturdy, thick plastics that have weathered some pretty severe storms where I live.The gold finches, house finches and chickadee's love to visit these feeders. Even sparrows have an occasional go at them.I would not call these (or the Becks feeder) guaranteed to prevent larger "non-clinging" birds from feeding at these stations. Grackles and Starlings (I hate them) are smarter than some people give them credit. I have seen both species fly up to the feeder, grab hold of the rim from which the clinging birds hang, rotate under and use their tails to brace themselves on the bottom of the feeders. While hanging upside down in that fashion, they crane their neck over the rim and eat the seed. However, this is very rare. Most don't study the situation that long, especially if there is easier food to be had at another feeder. So I would call this feeder very resistant to larger, non-clinging birds.In all, I recommend this feeder to those who want to give their finches a feeder to provide them within something more substantial than thistle as well as a feeder for the chickadees to enjoy their favorite, black oil sunflower, with very little harassment from the bully birds.Je suis tellement déçue. J'en ai acheté 2 et les 2 sont cassées après une semaine d'utilisation. Le plastique est très mince donc très cher pour la qualité. Je ne recommande pas du tout ce produit. Il est arrivé en bon état, mais n'est pas conçu pour l'extérieur.The connectors that attached the bottom to the middle, broke off, after one month, so we had to duct tape it together. The birds love it, anyhow.It did appeal the little bird like I would likeBelle Mangeoire
