We have an ongoing battle against the squirrels in the garden that eat bird food from the feeder. Not only do they finish all the bird feed within a day they also chase the birds away.
Chasing them away, making noise, squirting with water guns, tossing twigs at them- we tried it all and nothing worked.
After a little internet research it seemed that greasing the feeder pole so the persistent tree- rodents could not climb up would work. We tried WD40 but it only lasted a day. Next attempt was Vaseline but the location of the feeder was too close to a tree. They used the weeping cherry tree to jump onto the pole, do a flip worthy of Olympic gold and land on the feeder (cayenne pepper powder didn’t help much as they squirrels came back the next day).
Next we changed the location of the pole from which the bird feeder was hanging, away from the tree. The squirrels then started using the flower pots on the deck as a spring board to jump up and grab the feeder.
The flower pots have now been removed far enough that they cannot be used as a prop. The tree is too far for jumping. And the Vaseline is BACK!! A nice thick coating all over the pole. The squirrels try jumping up and swoooshhhhhhhh, they slip right back down.
The bird seed is safe for now…
For some interesting ways to keep birds off squirrel feeders, check out the series of three posts that includes the “Possibly related posts” Battling squirrels at bird feeders II: to fight or join them .
I’m trying two new ways this year. The hot pepper seems to work, except for one persistant squirrel. So I added hot pepper oil. I’ve had to chase few quirrels off the feeders using this technique.
Carolyn C. Holland