We have an abundance of squirrels in our neighborhood since we have two large oak trees in our yard providing acorns plus neighbors on both sides of us with bird and SQUIRREL feeders.
We feed birds and enjoy watching their antics. The yellow and black finches are our favorites and we sit on our deck and watch them on the cylinder bird feeder. We also have a suet feeder, a hummingbird feeder and our newest purchase a decorative feeder that attracts smaller birds. What falls onto the ground is dinner for the mourning doves, cardinals and robins, plus an assortment of little brown birds that seem to come and go in flocks. So far the fat little hummingbird feeder hasn’t had any visitors.
But we have a problem with the MANY squirrels climbing onto the previous feeders and basically chewing them to pieces. This new metal feeder seemed to be squirrel-proof. It hangs on a 5’ long metal rod attached to the tree limb by a chain and is 6’ from the ground.
This morning I looked out of the kitchen window and saw…..a SQUIRREL hanging on our new feeder upside down, enjoying the corn, saffron and sunflower seeds. I don’t know how he/she managed to get onto the feeder….my thought is that it was investigating the new feeder, tried to hold onto the metal rod and accidentally slid down to the feeder. If animals can think to themselves, this squirrel’s first thought was probably “whoops”.
After taking some photos, I went to find Ken to show him our visitor. But by the time he came into the kitchen the squirrel was gone. I am really disappointed that I didn’t see how he got off the feeder…couldn’t climb up the skinny little rod, was too far from the tree trunk to leap, so the only alternative was to drop onto the ground. For once I don’t begrudge a squirrel stealing food from the bird feeder….it provided me with a nice morning's entertainment.
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