What you see here represents the culmination of months of frustration and much trial-and-error. But now I can declare victory over an animal with a brain the size of a walnut. And although I sometimes have at least a dozen squirrels scavenging around the grounds under my bird feeders, there was only one who constantly defeated by baffles and found its way up on to the feeders. It didn’t matter where I put the baffle. If it was too close to the ground, this squirrel would simply leap completely over it, and then climb the pole to the promised land. If I put it too high, the squirrel could jump up to the bottom of the lowest-hanging tube feeder, and climb up from there. It was really quite impressive.
I bought some anti-bird spikes and super-glued them to the baffle, thinking that would do the trick. I was wrong. Like some featured performer from the Cirque du Soleil, it jumped in one continuous motion from the ground to a two-inch square space not covered by the spikes, and from that space on to the pole above the baffle. From there, the buffet was a sure thing.
Fortunately for my obsession, Ace is the place with the helpful hardware man. A few lengths of the right sized PVC, a connector and a clamp — and Voila!. The birds now feast away while even the super-squirrel must wait on the ground below, picking up the crumbs.
You’ll notice the big feeder at the top is listing a bit. It tilts 23 degrees, identical to the earth’s axial tilt. I’ll rotate it from season to season, to match the earth’s relationship to the sun. Please do not believe either of those last two sentences. I just completely made that stuff up. But it sounds good, doesn’t it?
Actually, the earth’s axial tilt really is about 23 degrees, which is why we have the changes of seasons. But that’s got nothing to do with my bird feeders, which are on duty winter, spring, summer and fall. Just like those damned squirrels.