Trying my hand at a bird feeder

[clovishound]

Squirrelageddon.

The birds come and go.

The squirrels stay on and on and on.

[clovishound]

Well, spring has brought a large amount of birds visiting the feeder. The suet block is getting a lot of attention as well, often from birds that never were interested before. Here's a few visitors yesterday.

While common in the area, I haven't seen too many mockingbirds on or around the feeders.

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The number of downy woodpeckers has exploded.

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This nuthatch didn't seem to mind be being rather close. Decent picture of the bird, the background, not so much.

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[markiver54]

More amazing pics! Thank you again for sharing.

[clovishound]

Well, the Pup got me something interesting yesterday. It's a bottle of "Flaming Squirrel". I like the name!

Apparently it's food grade habanero sauce and soybean oil. You can use it to coat your birds seed. They don't mention anything about squirrels on the label except for the picture of a squirrel with fire coming out of his mouth and ears on the front of the bottle. They market it as something the birds love. I am tempted to treat some seeds and put them out where the squirrels can get to them. I guess that makes me a bad person.

Right now, I don't have much trouble with the feeder. The squirrels destroyed the cheap feeder I had up and the squirrel resistant feeder I have seems to keep them out, as well a some homemade baffles on the wire it hangs from. I have been having trouble with them on the suet block this spring. They never bothered it before. I made some changes to the baffles on it, and haven't seen any apparent tree rat activity on it the last couple days. I may try some on it, just for insurance.

[markiver54]

Well, the Pup got me something interesting yesterday. It's a bottle of "Flaming Squirrel". I like the name!

Apparently it's food grade habanero sauce and soybean oil. You can use it to coat your birds seed. They don't mention anything about squirrels on the label except for the picture of a squirrel with fire coming out of his mouth and ears on the front of the bottle. They market it as something the birds love. I am tempted to treat some seeds and put them out where the squirrels can get to them. I guess that makes me a bad person.

Right now, I don't have much trouble with the feeder. The squirrels destroyed the cheap feeder I had up and the squirrel resistant feeder I have seems to keep them out, as well a some homemade baffles on the wire it hangs from. I have been having trouble with them on the suet block this spring. They never bothered it before. I made some changes to the baffles on it, and haven't seen any apparent tree rat activity on it the last couple days. I may try some on it, just for insurance.

"Flaming Squirrel"...love the concept!
I usually use the hot pepper suet and they want nothing to do with it. I recently put out some berry flavored suet, just to try something new. They're all over it now , unless they're on the ground below it where they appear to be sleeping..
What really makes me mad, is that Carol recently paid a good amount of money for a lot of flowering plants. The tree rats are digging holes all around where we planted them. I will not tolerate that.

[clovishound]

Well, I set up a perch at shoulder level hoping to get some of the birds to perch there while waiting for seeds at the feeder. Gives a much better angle and I can choose the background by changing placement of the perch and where I shot from. Finally got a few birds to light. I lured them to the perch with a seed ball. It supposed to have hot stuff in it to deter the demon squirrels. They love it.

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AND I FINALLY GOT ONE! Seen a few pileated woodpeckers around, but haven't been able to get a shot of one. I was outside with the camera today and two flew up and perched on the oak. I had trouble getting autofocus to work between low light and dark bird. I was finally able to rearrange my hold on the camera and prefocus manually, and managed to get a couple shots. One turned out OK. This bird has been on my short list of birds I want shots of.

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[markiver54]

Excellent!!
I bet the male pileated was close by.