When I was a kid, “bird watching” meant looking out a window to see what might be happening at the bird feeder in the back yard. Everyone I knew who had a yard also had a bird feeder, usually a homemade wood and glass hopper with trays and perching ledges on two sides. I remember that squirrels were the most common complication to backyard bird feeding then. Among my family and friends, sharing stories about squirrels at our feeders went along with sharing stories about birds.
In the years since then I’ve experimented with a few feeders at the couple of houses where I’ve lived. Squirrels have not been a problem. “Squirrel proof” features seem to work pretty well. I’ve learned the hard way, however, that squirrel proof does not mean deer proof. Moreover, squirrel proof does not mean raccoon proof.
P. Lotor is my bird feeding nemesis.
At my previous house I had a large, rather expensive tube feeder hanging about three feet below the lowest branch of a large tree right behind my house. The lowest branch was at least 12 feet up. This required a ladder to fill, but it hung in perfect view of the biggest windows in the house.
That worked great for years. Then one day I found the feeder on the ground. I didn’t think much of it. Perhaps a wind gust had unhooked it. The feeder was in good condition and functional so I put it back up. The next night I woke to a loud crash outside. I looked out with a flashlight and saw the feeder on the ground, with a very large raccoon devouring the seed spilling from it. The expensive feeder was ruined. I gave up for a while, first out of frustration, then because it became time to move to another town anyway.
My current house has lots of good natural habitat. There are lots of mature trees and some small lakes nearby. It’s good habitat for birds. And for deer. And for raccoons. I didn’t put up a feeder for several years because it didn’t seem necessary. When I received a suet cake feeder as a gift, I figured I might as well give it a try. That seemed to work, at least for the few weeks it took the woodpeckers to finish the suet cake.
Later I became interested in bird photography, and I realized that attracting birds to a feeder could provide easier photo opportunities. Last year I experimented with a few small feeders, tube feeders and suet cakes, placed in various locations in my yard.
A local bird store started selling a variation on suet cakes: basically birdseed granola bars shaped like doughnuts. The feeder for them has a vertical spindle so the granola bar doughnuts can be threaded onto them. Seemed like a nifty idea. Lasted about 18 hours. The morning after I put that up, I found the feeder on the ground, with about three crumbs of bird granola next to it.
So I gave up again for a few months. One day I noticed that the lamp post by my driveway had a small cross-arm sticking out, and on a whim I hung a tube feeder from it. I thought it was high enough to be out of reach of raccoons, but I was wrong. First I noticed that large amounts of seed seemed to disappear from the tube overnight. Then I noticed the feeder perches seemed to loosen up and move around mysteriously. Finally, this past Wednesday morning, I looked out at at sunrise and saw P. Lotor standing on tip-toe, batting at the feeder like a pinata.
Rather than give up again, I decided to just buy some taller poles to try to put a feeder out of reach. The lady at the bird seed store warned that raccoons have attempted to climb this pole system and pointed out the “raccoon proof” baffle which can be added to the pole — and which nearly doubles the cost of the rig.
I declined the extra cost, so I’m still taking a chance that P. Lotor will send me to the store yet again.
Four deer came to visit at early Friday. I watched two of them sniffing intently in the direction of the feeders. I cringed a bit as I waited for them to rear up and knock something down, but they resumed nibbling at the ground.
So far, then, so good. Well, as of Saturday evening. Stay tuned.
How about you? Please share your bird stories and photos from this week in comments below. Welcome to Dawn Chorus! Cheers