Do squirrels bother you?
No, I don’t mean do you have a medical condition called “Squirrels”!
Let me explain…
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Squirrels used to steal all the food from our bird table.
So I wrapped the table in chicken wire and made a hole just large enough for the small birds to fly in and out.
The bluetits loved it. They no longer had to go hungry.
But the squirrels didn’t give up. Eventually, they found a way.
Yep. One cheeky squirrel chewed away at the wooden roof until it could get in and raid the birds’ food.
Thinking cap on…
Rather than buy a new wooden bird table, we decided instead to buy a steel bird feeding station.
What’s a Bird Feeding Station?
It’s a steel pole with fancy ironwork to hang bird feeders onto.
And we also bought a squirrel baffle, which attaches to the pole so that squirrels can’t climb up past it.
They fit together quite neatly, like this…
The feeding station also came with a birdbath/water-bowl.
And also with a larger feeding bowl for nuts (which isn’t on this photo… I’ll explain why shortly).
It took just a few minutes to assemble the feeding station, then “plant” it into the ground (a rubber mallet does the job perfectly) and then load it with bird food goodies.
Job done, Christine and I watched for the bluetits and robins arriving, hoping they’d notice the brand new garden attraction we’d got for them and appreciate how much hard work we’d put into ordering it for them from Amazon!
We waited… And we waited…
Suddenly, we noticed that the nuts in the feeding bowl had disappeared.
Surely the squirrels couldn’t have reached them!?!
But soon we found the answer.
A rather large pigeon had eaten them all, then had decided to use the feeding bowl as a platform to stand on so it could reach and empty the contents of the seed feeder.
Now that the large bowl has gone, the feeding station has become a nice attraction for the bluetits.
They love it. And we enjoy watching them linger over breakfast.
Squirrel Problem Fixed?
But what about those squirrels?
Perhaps I shouldn’t laugh…
But it really was funny watching a squirrel trying to scramble up the slippery steel pole, only to be frustrated by a domed ceiling…
And the slow slide back down was even funnier.
Yes, the squirrels no longer steal the birds’ food.
But they still pop round with the hungry pigeons to enjoy the many bits that the birds drop during breakfast.
So everyone’s happy!
The steel bird feeder and squirrel baffle
we bought on Amazon (affiliate links)
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