Wed 15 Nov 2006
Sorry for the delay in getting the pillow feeder back on cam after the squirrels cut it down, but it’s back now. This time around I doubled the thickness of the wire and double-bagged the seeds inside too, and I also suspended it from the center rather from both edges, so it rotates now just to make it a bit more of a challenge. In this clip you’ll see that it doesn’t offer a challenge to the first squirrel at all; the technique is to chew a small hole right in the corner and then hang from that side, so that the bag acts as a funnel which just lets one seed out at a time. Half way through the clip, the squirrel is chased off by another, who hasn’t quite figured out the technique yet and spends some time trying out different approaches and different angles, but after a few minutes he, too, gets the “hang” of it.
This post, as well as the picture and video from it are © 2006 Chris Osborne, originally published on The Backyard Voyeur. The “Pillow Feeder” is his feeder project based on my (Zach Glenwright’s) Backyard Bag Feeder Project…
More dangling, 11-15-06 [6:13m]:
November 16th, 2006 at 3:23 am
Awesome! It makes sense (and I’ve seen… on here) that the squirrels can dig into the bag and hang on, but these ones weren’t even doing that! Very cool to have such acrobatic squirrels to get shots of!
As for mine, I’ve had my version of the Pillow Feeder out for the last 2 days… a total of… one squiirrel grabbed a total of… one nut, and that’t the end of that… I’m not doing it today, because it’s supposed to rain and rain and rain again, causing flooding of somewhat biblical proportions and obviously keeping squirrels inside. I wonder if it was a bad time of year to start my Feeder project back up…
Of course, when you started the whole Pillow Feeder, Chris, you had it on the ground originally. I started immediately doing it in mid-air - I haven’t done the ground feeder with the squirrels in at least 3 months! Maybe I should just wait until next year’s season, until the Spring and do the ground test for a few times until the squirrels get really into that, and then try the hanging test…?
Time will tell, of course…
November 16th, 2006 at 12:02 pm
Maybe your bag isn’t quite accessible enough? I put mine in the exact same place where a different kind of feeder had been previously, and because the squirrels are used to using the rope to come down from the tree, they were bound to be passing by anyway. I could have made it way more challenging, but since I’m running a live cam, the greater purpose is to give viewers something to see - or at least a good chance of seeing something at some time in the day on most days. So I’ve made it much easier than I could have done. I’ve also had my failed projects because something has been just that little bit too difficult and the guys just can’t be bothered when there are easier supplies of feed to go for.
Having said that, there are some squirrels who make a beeline for the bag and others who will sit in the feed tray only a foot or so away and ignore it completely; they have their own characters and some will be up for it and others won’t. Nobody can really predict for certain whether a squirrel will attempt a particular challenge. But I would definitely consider making any new project fairly accessible and obvious, at least to start with, and it’s possible that even placing something just a few inches too far out of reach would make a big difference.
November 16th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
I’ve never really thought it was inaccessible, but then again I’m not a squirrel… I’ve done 2 different setups - I’ve had it next to a birdfeeder, which sits on the support to a clothesline (which is directly above where I’ve done my ground project for years…) I haven’t really given the clothesline version that much of a chance, but I could see how it would be a lot more visable to the squirrels that like to visit the birdfeeder - they can just look over and see the nuts there. I should just leave that version running, maybe move the bag up a little higher so it’s not as difficult-looking to them and check it out in a week or so (of course, it would be nice if it stops raining so I could set the camera up!)
I’ve also had it hanging directly under a squirrel feeder (that squirrels frequent often), and in that configuration, it’s also right against a tree, so it’s climb-to-able… but maybe that’s not enough for some squirrels. As for that design, maybe the fact that it’s under the normal feeder is distracting them - it’s there, but it’s too out of the way to make the effort… I should start on the ground under the squirrel feeder to see if they’ll find that interesting… One other thing that might be distracting them is that they can’t really see the peanuts in the feeder - they’re looking down on it. I did stick some peanuts out of some of the holes to see if that would attract them more, and a few did come to check it out (including one that went back and forth for about 10 minutes, checking it out, going to the other side, and the other, and the other…) Maybe that’s a sign that they’re interested, but it’s just too far gone where I have it now…