Tag Archives: bird feeder

Our Third Bird Feeder in Six Months

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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?

Our New Bird Bath and Feeder

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When my wife took out our Christmas decorations, she suggested we do the Advent calendar again, by which she meant I do the Advent calendar again. I didn’t do it last year because of our move to our current house, but I did it the two previous years.

Our Advent calendar is made of wood and shaped like a house with 24 drawers. The first year I did it, I didn’t have 24 gifts that would fit in the drawers, so I wrapped them, wrote a short poem for each, and tucked the poems into the drawers. A word of advice: Be careful when you do something overly nice for your spouse, because it will soon be expected. If my wife is reading this, I’m just kidding.

Anyway, because of the small size of our house and its limited space, I needed to ensure my gifts would not take up too much room. Because of the number of gifts, jewelry was not an option. One of the gifts I chose, partly because it would take up no room in the house, was a combination bird bath and feeder with a planter at the bottom.

I did not take a photo of it from the outside, but here it is from Frankie’s perspective.

There is a cardinal on the feeder in the above photo and a squirrel in the photo below.

I worried that squirrels might tip it over, so I attached it to a wooden stake.

So far, the cats don’t seem to care much about it, but we humans have enjoyed seeing the wildlife from our front porch.

Squirrel/Bird Feeder Update

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I ordered a ground feeder last week in an attempt to distract the squirrels away from our new window bird feeder. While I was waiting for it, a Bluejay found our feeder. The curtain was partially closed and I didn’t want to get too close and scare him away, but I took a photo anyway.

The ground feeder I ordered doubles as a birdbath but I put corn in it, which I read is a favorite of squirrels, and placed it under the bird feeder yesterday.

Later that day I saw a squirrel in the bird feeder and looked down to see the corn had not been touched. I watched for a while and saw the squirrel come close to the corn but he never looked at it. I don’t know if he was ignoring it or just had not found it yet.

This morning the squirrel was back in the bird feeder while Frankie and Floki were there. This time he was not as nervous around them as in the past. Both cats even attacked the window to no avail. Eventually, they just settled down to watch.

When the squirrel left, I looked down and saw that all three ears of corn were gone. Somehow the little squirrel managed to drag three ears of corn away. I think now I need to buy a bag of sunflower seeds. I’d like to see him drag all those away.

Our Squirrel Feeder is for the Birds… or Vis Versa

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I brought Floki to get his nails trimmed at the vet last Saturday. He actually had an appointment the Saturday before but his ability to read minds had him under the bed before we even attempted to catch him and put him in the carrier. This time we got lucky and I drove him to the vet.

Behind the counter was an office cat sitting on a cat tree intensely looking out the window like he was going to attack something. There was a window bird feeder on the window and I saw at the edge of the window a squirrel’s tail. The girl behind the counter said his name was Freddy and he loved watching the birds and squirrels. I decided then that I wanted a window bird feeder too.

I did a little research on Amazon and ended up buying this one. I also bought a bag of bird food with a high variety of seeds so that any bird who visits will find something they like. Note: these are affiliate links and I will get a very small commission if you make a purchase.

The first animal to discover the food was not a bird but a squirrel. My wife texted me the other day about how Frankie and Floki were watching it from the cat tree.

Yesterday the squirrel was back and this time I was ready with my phone to record the encounter. Unfortunately, Chris missed the whole thing because he was napping in the other room.

I am not one of those people who try desperately to keep squirrels out of my bird feeder. In fact, I like watching squirrels, and the cats really like watching squirrels, so I had no intention of trying to prevent the squirrels from reaching the feeder. That is until this morning when I noticed the squirrel was poking holes in the screen. So, reluctantly, I removed the screens.

I doubt that squirrel will be able to reach the feeder now but squirrels are pretty resourceful. Now we need to wait for the birds to find it. Perhaps I will put something out there for the squirrels in the future.

Update: After writing that last paragraph and scheduling the post, I heard a noise next to me. I looked and saw the squirrel hanging from the screen on the far left window (far right looking from the street). He was feeling for the screen on the next window. I said, “Sorry, Squirrel,” and I really felt bad for him but I needed not to because he reached up and grabbed the thin ledge between windows and managed to scurry across the windows to the feeder.

Now I either have to remove every screen in the Florida room, which I don’t want to do, or accept that the screens will eventually be ruined, which I also don’t want to do. My other two options are to put food out for the squirrels and hope they ignore the bird feeder or find something decorative that they can climb instead of our screens.