Monday, January 23, 2012

birds and rodents

We have bird feeders in our yard - they are my husband's and we love having all the birds swooping down to the yard off the deck and kitchen.
Our favourite is this 12-perch one - we fill it with Nyger seed, and it is in constant use. There are often at least 12 birds on it, and many more swooping down, pushing off those that have monopolized it.
Though not shown here, we have a cardinal couple that often hang out - the bright red male, and the more brownish toned female, with the bright orange beak. I'll try for a shot of them.
These small songbirds have become so used to us, they don't even move when we open the door or walk by.
However, we also have a circular peanut feeder, because we wanted to attract larger birds like Blue Jays. Unfortunately, what we have attracted are annoying squirrels.
They are rather acrobatic, and can stretch in any number of ways.

We moved it from this "to easy to get to" perch, and hung it off by the basketball net.

Okay, so that didn't work...
 
But... we are not to be beat by rodents. My son recommended trimming some of the tree branches so he couldn't launch himself at it. That worked for a bit, but then the little beast found that while he couldn't CLIMB down the fishing line it's suspended from, he could SLIDE down (the feeder created enough of a landing area for him. )
As you can see from the above picture, he not only got to it, he taunted us!
 
We have since moved the stainless steel disc my husband fashioned from one of the feeders to the top of this circle feeder. I haven't seen the resulting squirrel slide, but the peanut level hasn't dropped in two days.
I think we've thwarted him for now...

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I tell ya, those squirrels and the raccoons are seriously smart.

Anonymous said...

P.S. Which just goes to show why someone designed some squirrel mittens.

Saren Johnson said...

I love feeding the birds.

Anonymous said...

Love the bird feeders. I had raspberry finches on mine, but everytime I tried to photograph them they flew away--many pictures of an empty birdfeeder. In my experience, once the blue jays come, the cardinals will leave. I enjoyed the squirrels too, but not everybody likes them. Ours were so tame they ate from our hand. Thanks for the pix. Marlyce in Windsor, Ontario

Carol said...

I was going to suggest some kind of wide disc over the feeder. one unstable enough that the squirrel would slide off. However, you have already done that. Fingers crossed it works!

We have a squirrel that occasionally sits on the ledge right on the other side of my kitchen window. Drives my kitties crazy!

Crazy Knitting Fool said...

Those squirels are sneaky little buggers.

Sheryl Evans said...

When I was little & would spend the night with my g'ma She would let me feed her squirrel. He was very tame & would come up on to the porch & she would give him one of her home made cookies. She gave me the cookie to give to him but for some unknown childish reason, when he took hold of it, I refused to let go. That squirrel grabbed my hand & bit my finger down to the bone. Off to the doctor for stitches!! I still have the scar. & that was the last time I ever fed the squirrel.

Knit and Purl Mama said...

Oh my those squirrels!