Building the Perfect Squirrel Proof Bird Feeder (Former NASA Engineer Mark Rober)

YouTube ^ | 5/24/2020 | Mark Rober

[laplata]

If you watch the video you’ll find out he has a wife and a dog.

You might even enjoy the video.

[Nailbiter]

flr

[Sequoyah101]

Enjoyed that. All but gave up on defeating the squirrels after placing the feeder on a greased plastic pole some 50 feet away from the nearest tree horizontally AND vertically overhead. They still would not be defeated making the leap with a planned trajectory to reach the feeder. Two of them, Hootie and her son Scratchy became multi year dependents and downright pests tapping windows for food and climbing pant legs and such. Fortunately no bites and we did have to enforce limits.

Defeated by the squirrels i turned my attention to the coons that also raided the bird feeder. They not only ate all the seed but destroyed the bird feeder. I broke them from sucking eggs by wrapping both legs of 110 volt ac bare copper wire to a 4” pvc pipe suspended around the bird feeder pole. The results were shocking. The coon raids ended. No coons were killed but I did learn they can actually scream in the night.

[Viking2002]

Still, all of that considered, I just fill the bird feeders on my property and let the birds and tree rats exercise their dominion over Darwinism accordingly. Nothing like a good Fight Club throwdown between a jaybird and a squirrel. LOL Jaybirds are mean suckers. I root for the jaybirds. Those damn rodents have been stripping my fruit trees bare in the spring because they’re not mature enough yet to withstand a full assault. Yes, I tried tree netting. They chewed through it and ate every peach and pear they could find. God help me when the apple trees come out of dormancy. I’m thinking of high amperage electric fencing.

[laplata]

I grew up on a big ranch dealing with predators and other critters so it’s not as easy to relate to a few animals in a yard.

[tallyhoe]

right in the start area Joe Biden popped up had to right click his ad!

[RoosterRedux]

Loved it.

[rlmorel]

I pretty much do the same, though as you can see from the video I took of the squirrel taking a ride on my motorized bird feeder (here is a GIF I made from it that seemed appropriate when I made it) that I do try to conserve bird seed when I can...

I used to really dislike Blue Jays, but over the years, my views have changed and they are my favorites. They can. be oddly goofy in their behavior, which makes them fun to watch.

And like squirrels, they always seem to have a thought bubble over their head...you can almost see them thinking when they are evaluating something!

An interesting side note-my wife has turned into an absolute chipmunk exterminator. They have been tunneling all over our back yard, and she had enough. She has been emptying the trap every day, and she is up to 14 dead chipmunks...I am surprised, I didn't think she had that in her!

Perhaps I need to take note of that...:O

[rlmorel]

I can see that mindset...you would tend to see them as strictly vermin!

[okkev68]

I didn’t know that about squirrels until I knocked one out of a tree with a pellet gun. I calculated that he was around 30 feet off the ground when I missed him by about an inch low. He jumped a good foot up and out and I was smiling watching him free fall to the ground.

He bounced once and then took off running to another tree as I sat there stunned. I had to go look it up and sure enough they can survive falls of 40 to 50 feet.

[rlmorel]

I have a wrist rocket, and some ceramic covered ball bearings, and I nailed a squirrel right in its fat, bird seed fattened buttock, and the thing just turned around, looked, and kept on eating!

Astonishing. I know they are vermin, but boy, they sure can jump as the video shows.

[Albion Wilde]

That was hlarious! I came to the same realization he did early on; that they is no sense trying to find a fool-proof bird feeder. So I sprinkle the birdseed on the deck stairs, so that the birds eat from the surfaces of the steps, and the squirrels wrestle each other below the steps for all the seed the birds have pushed underneath the steps in their haste. "Separate but equal."

[rlmorel]

Hehehehehehe...never thought I would hear “Separate but Equal” applied to Squirrels!

[Hot Tabasco]

Excellent, this video has over 24 million views.......wow!

[Hot Tabasco]

either this dweeb is single (and I can point to a dozen different observations to corroborate that theory),

Then you would be wrong on each observation. He's married with 1 child and five pets and you're a .........Sheesh!

[AFreeBird]

He’s married. Wifey didn’t want the critters hurt. And he was probably bored.

BTW: this is the guy that made the “glitter bomb” package for the local porch pirates.

That was hilarious too.