Bird vs. Squirrel

 

I love the birds.  I love feeding them and watching them and listening to them and always have.

If one decides to build a nest on the house both PH and I alter our movements to accommodate the new momma and her family. If they build very close to our spaces we talk to momma and she gets used to us and doesn't fly off.  In spring when they wake us with their dawn chorus we don't mind. We love it. It's just fine.

But I don 't like the squirrels horning in on and emptying the feeders and since we live in the woods now there is no stopping them. If there is one there is a whole regiment out there. The tiny red ones are tenacious and I've done everything I could think of to deter them.  Nothing worked.  Not one thing. NOTHING.

I tried them all.  The sprays, the baffles, feeding them their own lunch, I even bought one of those toy orbi guns last fall to shoot little orbi gel balls at them and when that didn't work I tried a powerful squirt gun.  Nothing worked.  They would simply step aside, wait for me to close the door and be back before I put the toy down.  

Notice that black bungee cord across the roof of the feeder.  The feeder whose weighted perch was supposed to deter the squirrels.  They simply took the roof off and wallowed in the feed inside like they were in some amusement park ball pit.  So I tried bungee cords to hold the roof on.  They chewed through them.  Sometimes in the very day I put the cords on.  I tried this stiff rubber thick cord that I can hardly stretch to fit the hooks.  Chewed right through.  One day I put THREE cords on and they chewed through two of them in one afternoon's entertainment.  

But.  But one day I thought I figured them out.   I had bought some feed that is treated with hot pepper.  After all, the hot pepper suet is left alone so maybe the hot pepper feed? It works for this feeder. No one touches it but the birds. So I thought if I filled the house with this feed maybe the squirrels would leave the house alone, too.

 While searching online for a bag I noticed an ad for something "guaranteed" to repel the squirrels.  I had purchased other products guaranteed to thwart squirrels but nothing ever worked.  Not one thing. But, once again, I fell for the label and knew I didn't have anything to lose.

  Scroll back up.  Do you see the little bags with the red stinky balls in them?  THIS WORKS!!!

Never in my bird feeding life have I found something so small that absolutely works.  ABSOLUTELY. I don't know if I really needed to put two out but if one is good two is better, right? 

I told PH I didn't conduct the proper scientific testing by seeing if ONE of the two deterrent's, the feed or the stinky balls worked but I don't care.  One, ONE tiny red squirrel scurried up the pole, took one whiff and ran off.  Not one single one has come back. The birds can now eat in peace and my life of bird watching is much less stressful. 

Ahhh.