A couple of times recently Wendy has accidentally referred to our bird feeder as the "squirrel feeder". Unfortunately, there's some truth to that phrase.
Last summer I posted this photo:
I said that I hoped the squirrel had just gotten lucky and that it was a one-time occurrence. Well, no such luck. The past couple of Saturdays we watched in dismay as a squirrel ran up the pole to the top of the bird feeder, and then deftly slid down until it reached the food holes at the bottom. I pounded on the window to scare it away, but a few minutes later it came back and the entire scene repeated.
They had made a mockery of my squirrel-proof bird feeder. It had indeed become... a squirrel feeder.
So something had to be done.
I recalled that when I first posted about the bird feeder, Otto mentioned he'd once attached a cone-shaped sheet of aluminum to his bird feeder to keep the squirrels away. That sounded like a promising idea. Then I remembered that at the gift shop of the Dillon Nature Center in Hutchinson, KS, which we visited last year, they were selling something along those lines. It was called a squirrel... something-or-other. I couldn't quite recall the name.
So I went to Amazon and after a bit of searching I found the right term: a squirrel baffle! It's basically a metal cone that easily attaches to a pole. I bought one and have now installed it:
Only time will tell how effective it is. So far we've seen squirrels on the ground underneath the feeder, but haven't seen any attempt to climb the pole. I am crossing my fingers!