This is not my photo, but I bought this bird feeder at Lowe's for about $10, and it is great. I hang it from where the hanging platform once dangled.
Our athletic squirrels were banging the platform off the window.
The final bird-feeding configuration was:
- Hanging the Lowe's feeder, easy to fill with sunflower seeds.
- Buying a tall pole for the platform and planting it close to the window for viewing and away from the rain.
- Filling the squirrel-proof (HA!) feeder with finch food, which the little birds love and the squirrel ignores. The squirrels shop at the Lowe's and the platform feeder.
- Hanging seven pounds of suet from large baskets from the squirrel-proof feeder.
- Storing one bird-bath under the eaves so it can be filled with rainwater, dumped onto the Butterfly Bush, and refilled with tap-water when necessary.
- Keeping the Jackson EZ Bird Swing, which is now above the platform feeder. It is their favorite place to rest when waiting for food.
- Using rescue tree stumps as supplemental feeders in the Bird Paradise section. There I have another bird bath and some bird-friendly plants, such as blueberries.
Birds know who feed them, and they sing, chortle, and chatter when Sassy and I walk. The robin is so fixed in the rose garden, with thousands of worms to eat, that he often just ducks behind a bush and peeks out as we go by.
I was inches away from our squirrel in Bella Vista when I took this photo. He mocked and humiliated me with his raiding of the squirrel-proof feeder. I eventually stopped filling it, but I brought it with me to Springdale, 25 miles south, where the squirrels want nothing to do with the finch food I put in it.
Norma Boeckler reported that switching to finch food also keep the squirrels at bay. They will eat anything but finch food is way down on their list.
