Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for May 02, 2014

Steel pole, with a cone shaped baffle or other wide blockage, around the pole….That’s all it takes….Or just buy dried corn and spread the ears around the yard, then they don’t bother going after the bird bait, er, I mean feed, and everybody’s happy, even the cats…

I highly recommend watching Daylight Robbery I, if you can find it. (Not the stupid movie, the BBC documentary.)

For anyone interested, the baby wrens left the nest yesterday. I’m literally experiencing empty nest syndrome. It’s lonely out in the laundry room now.

They are smart rats with big bushy tails.

I found to keep squirrels from climbing my feeder, I just lay all the feed under a big tree. Of course they get it all, but they would anyway somehow.

to keep squirrels from eating your bird seed add pepper to the seeds. Capsicum only affects mammals, so the birds won’t notice and the squirrels will learn to leave it alone really quickly.

I enjoy feeding the squirrels too.

I had a bird feeder hanging in the tree outside my window, and I put a bowl of bird seed on the porch for the squirrels. I came home on day to find the squirrel hanging upside down from the tree, eating from the bird feeder while the birds were on the porch, eating from the bowl I’d left for the squirrels.

“Squirrels are just rats with good PR.”

Who said this? I can’t remember.

We put peanuts in a five-foot length of 3-inch PVC pipe. The squirrels can get the nuts, but the blue jays can’t. We have a couple of squirrels who will take peanuts from our hands. Actually, we have more aggravation from the raccoons raiding the feeders at night, than we do the squirrels.

Squirrels : Tree Rats.

One feeder that doesn’t just dump the birdseed as the squirrel falls off is Droll Yankee.

And, I’ve successfully tried the pepper thing too.

Nice seed spreader….Thanks, the squirrel….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2a5AA30RTY(Mission immpossible squirrel)

12 gauge, No. 6 shot.

Just kidding.

@Dani Rice: please don’t do that! We had a toddler here who had to go through rabies shots after a squirrel bit her while she sat in her stroller because she wouldn’t give up her muffin to him.

About three years ago, a hawk built a nest in one of my pines. She explodes out of the tree and takes any squirrel that is stupid enough to be on the fence or bird feeder. I have never seen her attack another bird. She is no longer afraid of me and will land on the patio wall and catch raw chicken that I toss. I don’t know if she was raised in captivity and released, or just decided my wife, children, and I will do her no harm.

I use a weight sensitive feeder ($25) that works flawlessly – they learn pretty fast, too!