Aggravating little devils, aren’t they? I love hunting them with bow or my 20 gauge flintlock smoothbore. But keeping them out of bird feeders is another story. I’m happy to announce that I finally did find a squirrel-proof feeder. Okay, it wasn’t really squirrel-proof when I bought it but I’ll get to that. Here it is. http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/store/royal-wingreg%3B-squirrel-be-gonetrade%3B-wild-bird-feeder As you can see, there is an inner plastic reservoir to hold the seed and an outer sliding sleeve made of metal that comes down to shut off the feeding ports if a critter that weighs too much gets on it. You can even adjust the spring tension to keep out larger birds. I bought this contraption, my wife filled it with seed, and I hung it in a tree. It kept the squirrels out for about a day and a half. I stepped out of the house to see a squirrel wrapped around the flange on the base and busily scraping seeds out of the lower feeding port. I shouldn’t have been surprised but I was. My battle of wits with these tree rats goes back many years. My solution? Remove the flange on the base. I used my dremel tool with cut off wheels to cut away the flange leaving the base itself then I smoothed things up with a file. I’m happy to announce that the feeder actually seems to be squirrel-proof. I know my solution isn’t as satisfying as shooting arrows at them but it’s more effective in the long run. Can’t help you with the suet though!
John
