We moved recently from one house to another. Like all sensible people, I tackled the most important move-in chore first. I set up the bird feeders.
That’s right. Before hooking up the washer and dryer, I filled the feeders. Before assembling the beds, I hung the feeders. Before installing shower curtains, I thrilled to watch a twittering, tweeting flock congregate at the feeders.
All that as the appliances, beds and shower curtains still sat in the mover’s truck.
Priorities count.
I love my bird feeders. At the old house, for a time, I had seven – seed feeders, a seed-block feeder, a suet feeder, a couple of hummingbird feeders. I’d sit in my patio chair some 10 or 12 yards away and watch the fluttering throng through binoculars, improving my species identification skills.
I’m now reduced to two feeders. Once hung at the new house, they attracted birds within three minutes. Five minutes later, they’d drawn the first Tyrannosquirrelus, that marauding bane of all bird-feeder fans.
We’re popular with the neighborhood fauna, if not the actual neighbors.
More feeders to come.
Why would your neighbors object to your bird feeders?
I doubt they would, or will, mind. We’d been in the house about a minute and a half at that point and hadn’t yet met any neighbors. But we’d met birds and squirrels.
Yes, those pesky squirrels are quite adept at raiding feeders — even hummingbird feeders. Probably another idea for an essay. I was so excited when I saw that my feeder was nearly empty after only one day! Later, my excitement waned as I saw a squirrel swinging the feeder to make the liquid spill out…
Squirrels — cute thieves.
Guessing the squirrels eyed them too within five minutes and said, “Those look pretty easy to knock down.” But after knocking them down, can they get the feed out? What squirrel proof feeders have you had success with?
The green feeder in the foreground is squirrel proof, but the squirrels keep trying and have broken off a couple of the perches. The other feeder is a squirrel buffet. I’ll probably get a dedicated feeder pole with a squirrel guard. I had one of those in Greensboro, and it deterred most squirrels.