We have an amazing variety of birds coming to visit our garden. We don’t fool ourselves, they’re only here because of the array of different food that we put out for them. We lay on a buffet of lard balls, peanuts, meal worms, niger seeds… and the favourite of most of the visitors, sunflower hearts.
The sunflower hearts aren’t the favourite of just the birds, local squirrels have recently taken a liking to them too… too much of a liking, in fact. They muscle in, hog the space, and prevent the birds from getting any. We’re going to have to invest in some squirrel-proof bird feeders.
Squirrel-proof bird feeders work in 3 different ways. Firstly, some have feeding holes that are too small for the squirrels’ teeth but that birds’ beaks can access easily. The cheap meshed example is one of those. Others, such as #2, have a cage around the feeder that small birds can get in and out of, but squirrels are too large to fit through. Lastly, as in #3, the weight of a squirrel on the feeder causes a spring mechanism to drop down and close the feeding holes. Most garden birds are too lightweight to activate the closure.
We have a lesser spotted woodpecker come to feed each day, however, he seems to prefer the feeder containing the peanuts anyway. The meshed feeder seems to have holes that may be large enough for whole sunflower hearts to fall out of and scatter below. It would be perfect for something the size of whole peanuts. My money is on the cage option, especially as it has 4 feeding holes… it will reduce the amount of squabbling amongst the birds for the premium perching spot!
- Meshed bird feeder: £3.69, Amazon
- Guardian with 4-port seed feeder: £34.99, CJ Wildlife
- Squirrel Buster Plus feeder: £79.99, RSPB
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