Posted on 06/04/2020 9:17:36 PM PDT by EinNYC
This is a COVID-sidelined NASA engineer who invented the Porch Pirate Glitter Bomb. Now he turns his talents into inventing and testing a squirrel proof bird feeder.
That was interesting and fun to watch.
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.
Didn’t that porch pirate glitter bomb video turn out to be staged?
air gun....
Not interested in killing them. Just entertainment to enjoy.
That wuz fun
Thanks
Discovery channel did this about 1990 or 91. I recorded it on vhs, done in England, similar obstacle course.
Not one “squirrel proof” bird feeder I know of has actually worked. They even defeated one with a weighted platform, one in front and one in back made it simple and the feast was once again, on.
Obstacle course took them a bit under 2 weeks to master, then less than 30 seconds.
One guy set a water hose up to spray the feeder and a control valve inside the house. It worked until they figured out they could see him through the window when he walked across the room toward the valve. Never again did he score a direct hit...
Metal rod outside a window with plastic disks that would spin, about the size of a quarter. Worked for a couple of days till one figured out he could just run across it...
The show started with a video of a squirrel climbing inside a candy machine. About 6 or 8 seconds later it climbed back out, lugging a Baby Ruth bar, and ran off down a city street with it...
Nothing they figured out would stop them.
I’ve heard ground cayenne pepper mixed into the bird seed will work but have not tried it. Some company sells it, I checked the label, one ingredient...ground capsicum...which is cayenne pepper...your mileage may vary...
Mine works fine, they get on it and it closes by their weight.
He did not do due diligence to his research before he started, and he wound up “reinventing the wheel” with a design that is far below many good “wheels” that already exist.
1. Do not use a wooden pole or any type of “stand”.
2. Use a “Shepherd’s crook” type of pole made of metal, like wrought iron.
3. Set the pole in the ground in the yard NOT near any fences, trees or buildings.
4. Get a bird feeder that is made with a spring loaded bird food tube with a bunch of feeding perches, and which closes the little feeding doors (the perches descend) when the weight of the squirrel gets on the feeder, if they somehow manage to get there.
5. To train the local squirrels to know they can’t get food out of the bird feeder, you can initially grease the shepherd’s crook pole with Crisco. It’s fun in the early days watching the squirrel tribes learn they can’t get up the pole (a couple really frisky fellows did made a stellar attempt), and also learning how their own weight on the feeder (should they manage to get there) closes the openings to the bird seed
Unfortunately, what you spill filling the feeder and what the birds drop from the feeding holes, provides plenty of feed on the ground, which the squirrel tribes compete with Doves and other large birds for. So, while even the best bird feeder will deter the squirrels from getting fed from it, it will not get the squirrels out of the yard.
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