A hungry squirrel just hanging around. Photo: Carolyn Sundquist
My family has watched this bird feeder in the small tree outside our Farmington Hills, Mich., home for about ten years. I’ve never seen as many squirrels as this winter gathered under it or on the tree above it. There is an average of about ten squirrels a day.
Maybe it’s the warm winter. Maybe they’ve finally learned the tricks of the trade. If you ask me, we have ninja squirrels.
They have figured out how to slide down the plastic cover and latch their back feet to the metal bottom where birds usually rest. They hang for a while, grab a pawful of seeds and eat it upside-down.
Then they roll back up for more.
More times than not, they fall safely to the ground, only to race right back up the tree for another try.
It used to annoy us. They were stealing the feed from the birds. But we’ve come to enjoy watching these suburban scavengers.
We fill the feeder about once a day and it shows in these plump little guys. You may think they are storing up for the winter, but as my Dad says, “They are gluttonous.”
But how do you stop it?
Anyone out there with a better idea for stopping squirrels from stealing all the seed from the birds?