thwarted!
copyright © Mim Eisenberg/mimbrava studio. All rights reserved.
Because the squirrels were eating me out of house and expensive birdseed* from the tray feeder at my office window, I very reluctantly replaced it with a medium-sized squirrel-proof feeder. Watching the antics of a squirrel trying to get to the seed it just loves and must have, must have, must have! was amusing yesterday. But because I also bought a pole and arm set-up that keeps the feeder 16" away from the squirrel's reach, it could not stretch out and shake the feeder to release the seeds from the open ports, and when it climbs onto it from the top, its weight closes the ports**, totally thwarting its efforts to get at the seeds. The shots in this mosaic were taken in a five-minute span. Finally, it just looked straight at me as if to say, "What have you DONE?"
This morning the feeder was still filled almost to yesterday's level, which had never, ever been the case with the tray feeder. Don't worry, the squirrels have plenty of safflower seed to eat at my backyard feeders. Now, they're not supposed to like safflower, and at first they seemed to eat it with distasteful grimaces, but they've come to just gobble it down.
*The expensive seed is Wild Birds Unlimited's Southern NoMess. I have it at my front yard because there really is absolutely no mess beneath the feeder, which is aesthetically nicer for the location.
**In the larger view you can see how the ports are open when the squirrel is off the feeder but shut when it's on it.
The squirrel-proof feeder comes with some disadvantages: It sways when a bird lands on or takes off from a perch, as opposed to the stability of the tray feeder, which will make photography problematic if not impossible, and birds sometimes alight on the perch on the side opposite the window, making them invisible to me. So unless I relent and put seed in the now-dismantled tray feeder, I probably won't be taking any more wildlife shots from my office window. But at least the seed will be taken by birds now. Even a bluebird took from it this morning.
See my shots on flickriver:
www.flickrriver.com/photos/mimbrava/
or
on fluidr:
www.fluidr.com/photos/mimbrava
I invite you to stroll through My Galleries.
thwarted!
copyright © Mim Eisenberg/mimbrava studio. All rights reserved.
Because the squirrels were eating me out of house and expensive birdseed* from the tray feeder at my office window, I very reluctantly replaced it with a medium-sized squirrel-proof feeder. Watching the antics of a squirrel trying to get to the seed it just loves and must have, must have, must have! was amusing yesterday. But because I also bought a pole and arm set-up that keeps the feeder 16" away from the squirrel's reach, it could not stretch out and shake the feeder to release the seeds from the open ports, and when it climbs onto it from the top, its weight closes the ports**, totally thwarting its efforts to get at the seeds. The shots in this mosaic were taken in a five-minute span. Finally, it just looked straight at me as if to say, "What have you DONE?"
This morning the feeder was still filled almost to yesterday's level, which had never, ever been the case with the tray feeder. Don't worry, the squirrels have plenty of safflower seed to eat at my backyard feeders. Now, they're not supposed to like safflower, and at first they seemed to eat it with distasteful grimaces, but they've come to just gobble it down.
*The expensive seed is Wild Birds Unlimited's Southern NoMess. I have it at my front yard because there really is absolutely no mess beneath the feeder, which is aesthetically nicer for the location.
**In the larger view you can see how the ports are open when the squirrel is off the feeder but shut when it's on it.
The squirrel-proof feeder comes with some disadvantages: It sways when a bird lands on or takes off from a perch, as opposed to the stability of the tray feeder, which will make photography problematic if not impossible, and birds sometimes alight on the perch on the side opposite the window, making them invisible to me. So unless I relent and put seed in the now-dismantled tray feeder, I probably won't be taking any more wildlife shots from my office window. But at least the seed will be taken by birds now. Even a bluebird took from it this morning.
See my shots on flickriver:
www.flickrriver.com/photos/mimbrava/
or
on fluidr:
www.fluidr.com/photos/mimbrava
I invite you to stroll through My Galleries.