You may remember I bought my wife a combination bird feeder and bird bath for Christmas. This worked well until a rat found it. Then I had to get rid of it, lest the rat find a way into our house.
We then ended up buying a separate birdbath and a rat resistant feeder. I also changed the feed to one that was less likely to attract rats. This also limited the type of birds that it would attract, but that was an okay compromise.
The new feeder hung from a shepherd’s hook and worked well for a while. Then, about two or three weeks ago, it stopped working well. Suddenly the food that originally lasted weeks, lasted only a few days. Most of it was being dumped on the ground, and into the bird bath. I assumed a large bird found the feeder and was swinging it so the seeds dumped out, but we never saw the culprit. It might have even been a squirrel but I’m not sure if the squirrels would like the new seed any more than the rats.
In any case, we decided to start over. This time I found one that was heavier and attached to a pole rather than swing from it. The one I found had a camera that seemed appealing. The pole I bought separate.
The camera could be attached horizontally or vertically. I wanted my videos to be horizontal, so I attached the camera vertically. I know. It didn’t make sense to me either.
It also came with a solar collector to power the camera but the engineers did not think people would want to attach it to the feeder so they designed it to be attached to another surface, which did not work for me so I used the optional piece that was for attaching the feeder to a house or barn and rigged it so I could attach the solar panel to the feeder. If they were smart, they would have designed the solar panel to attach to the roof of the bird house, but they weren’t smart.
The camera attached to our Wi-Fi so we can either view our feeder live from wherever we are or watch saved clips using an app called Coolfly.
Above is a clip from this morning. You can see from the top it automatically identified the bird as a Northern Cardinal. That is impressive but that cardinal and his female counterpart have been to the feeder dozens of times, yet it only identifies it about a quarter of the time.
All in all, I’m happy with the new feeder. It seems solid and doesn’t spill seeds like the last one. Click here if you want to see a link to what I bought. It is an affiliate link, but I don’t necessarily recommend it. It does have its issues, like the solar panel mount, but since I only paid $50 for it, I have nothing to complain about. What do you think?
Bad Cat Chris 
I like the camera attached to it!
My son gave me a bird feeder for Mother’s Day and habanero food ‘guaranteed to keep squirrels out.’ Guess who have been the only ones in the feeder? Yup. Squirrels. 🙄
I put up a separate feeder for squirrels that I load with peanuts. They love them but the store ran out of raw shelled peanuts, so I bought the raw unshelled peanuts. I would have thought they would like those more but not so.
It’s beautiful, and quite a construction marvel. Having experimented with many when a homeowner, it’s always hard to keep the pesky squirrels away, they’re very creative & determined to get their food! We never did feed the birds tho during the hottest months, allowing Mom Nature to supply what they needed, only doing so mostly thru fall and winter. Best wishes and go for those great photos and videos … check out CORNELL UNIV for bird identification, it’s the best.
Thanks. I never minded and feeding the squirrels. In fact, we have a separate squirrel feeder. Our main issue was avoiding the rats.
this is really cool…hopefully you get a lot of sun there year round, so you might get a chance
at seeing winter birds. cardinals are a sign of good luck, and that a loved one is watching over you ‼️🐾😸💚
Fancy!! Looks very sturdy though and I think this one will last you…..unless some idiot tries to TAKE it for themselves. We have tons of those beautiful Northern Cardinals flying around here so I guess not all of them are vacationing in sunny Florida!
Hugs, Pam
Apparently they are not so Northern after all 😁
What a great feeder! I like that it has a camera. And for $50, that seems like a good deal.
We once had a feeder like your second one, it worked for awhile until we found all the seed being dumped and eaten quickly. We found out it was raccoons that were doing it! Some how they managed to reach the feeder and then dumped it all out so they could eat the seed.
I can see it being racoons by you, but our area is not near any large patches of nature. I did see a bird on our bird bath that was black and almost as big as a crow, but a little different from a crow. Perhaps that bird was landing on our hanging feeder.
Squirrels will destroy feeders to get at the seeds…I have witnessed that myself.
The experts tell us to hang over 5 feet off the ground, and at least 8 feet away from anything they can jump from. A baffle on top and another on the pole are good helps too. I put stovepipe around my poles, too slippery and wide for squirrels to get ahold of…they wait until the volunteer sunflowers are big enough and them climb up from there, the little stinkers! I also spent a fortune on a feeder that has a rechargeable battery in it, and when very large birds or marauding rodents get on the ring where the birds sit to feed, they get spun right off, hilarious! If they hang on, they get so dizzy,LOL! Sadly the battery died over the winter, but still no squirrels climb onto it…they must have learned something!
By the way, there are always plenty of seeds on the ground for ground feeders, and of course the squirrels, until the dogs see them!!
Good luck with your new feeder!
Thanks. I set up a squirrel feeder about ten or fifteen feet from the bird feeder, so they have a better option.
That is such a wonderful use of technology and fun too!
We enjoy seeing a list of who visited.
That was a good deal.
Thanks. It was mostly trial and error.
I think it’s good you are not giving up altogether, but continuing to work to find a way to let your wife enjoy the gift you originally wanted to give.
Thanks. When you have a bird feeder, birds become dependent on it. Giving up is not an option. We would have to ween them off.
It’s perfect for the cats. Now they have live action and recorded cat TV.
Live action for them, recorded for us. 🙂