I picked up on Zach’s backyard feeder idea and put together something similar last week. Mine was, of course, not so carefully thought out nor finely tuned; I got a block of something called Nu-Foam as I couldn’t find any of the normal stuff, and put that in a two and a half gallon zip up bag with a lump of concrete to weigh it down and a couple of piles of peanuts in the top where they could be seen but not accessed without opening the bag or chewing through. Initially I also put some extras on top to encourage the animals to come take a look. Over the first couple of days, the extras vanished but nobody attempted the bag itself.

However, this morning a black squirrel took the initiative and got all of one pile of peanuts out, and got the bag open as well for good measure. So the official result is that it took one week for one squirrel to figure this one out. I didn’t have the project on camera because I didn’t expect there would be anything worth seeing, or at least not often enough to devote a camera to it, and this morning I didn’t have a still camera handy when the squirrel did crack the puzzle but I did see it doing so. As far as I can tell, no birds were interested in tackling this one, even though we’ve picked up a couple of bluejays who are big enough to take it on. There are probably too many other and easier sources of food in this yard for them anyway.

Anyway I will replace the bag and move it somewhere else in the yard, away from the tree, and see if the birds take it on. Unfortunately it’s not a project that suits the live cams so it will be off camera, but I’ll keep a watchful eye on it and report developments.

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This post and the pictures 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…

For the last few days, Chris, the Backyard Voyeur, has been trying his own version of my Backyard Bag Feeder Project. My main project consists of a platform made with a piece of foam (in this case a piece of Nu-Foam in a seperate bag) put into a bag that has a little bit of food inside of it, to see if animals that would normally check a standard feeder out would be interested enough in the food to dig into the bag and get the food out of that feeder. He has had some interested squirrels, and has seen them digging at the bag, but hasn’t been able to get any shots of them actually “in the act” of getting the food… I was watching this morning (October 25th) and at about 8:47am or so PST, a squirrel got some of the food out of the bag - and I caught it on “tape” through the magic of screen capture…

There’s some unavoidable problems with this shot that’s one of the usual risks with this kind of shot, and problems that I’ve seen many, many many times with my shots… The sun’s coming right into the lens (which seems to happen to me a lot right about the time when I can finally get the shot I’ve been waiting for all morning…) And the squirrel’s facing away from the camera for most of the beginning — I’ve done shoots in the past where a squirrel can take 15 minutes digging for food and it’s constantly facing away from the camera… I call those shots “back-shots”, but it wasn’t facing that way the entire time, so it’s not that big of an issue… I think (more like I know) I’m just more of a control freak when I look back at shots…
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Although written by me (Zach), the picture and video in this post 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…

… or perhaps I should say, not in the bag any more. The bag feeder can be said to be thoroughly compromised now.

A triumphant squirrel stands on top of a totally wrecked and emptied feeder

Activity really took off yesterday, probably as a result of me tempting them with a whole bag of unshelled peanuts between the top and bottom layers of bagging. No way was even the dumbest squirrel going to miss that, and they didn’t …

Getting stuck in there

The following clip features about four and a half minutes of thievery. Where this guy is stacking away all his nuts is a mystery, I assume he had to dig a pretty big hole!

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This post, as well as the pictures 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…

This is all that’s left of the bag feeder (otherwise known as the Glenwright Backyard Feeder Project^TM - style feeder) …

And here’s the outer bag, or what remains of it. The squirrels had also got through the inner bag and pulled out some of the stuffing, possibly out of curiosity more than anything else.

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This post and the pictures 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…

OK, undeterred, I triple-bagged this one and filled it with premixed woodpecker feed rather than unshelled peanuts. Astonishingly, I walked from the yard back to my laptop in the house to see that a squirrel had already arrived and started tucking in. It looks like this bag isn’t going to last any longer than the last one; do they think I’m made of plastic bags, for goodness sake?

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This post, as well as the pictures 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…

I spent quite a lot of time this afternoon monitoring the live feed from the bag feeder, as I’d tried setting it up vertically just for a change. After quite a while I had a few clips of squirrels inspecting the new arrangement but not really taking much interest, and a few clips of a squirrel digging some of the remains of the woodpecker feed out of the bottom corners of the bag. But nothing had gone for the main attraction, the handful of unshelled peanuts just sitting there asking to be eaten.

Eventually one squirrel did figure out that the top of the bag was now open, and got in there and got one peanut. Then another squirrel chewed through and again, took just the one peanut (see Clip One below). But after that, nothing. I watched for ages and finally got fed up and decided to take a quick shower.

When I came back a few minutes later, the front of the bag had been chewed open and almost every nut had gone! Boy, was I frustrated. How do they know when you stop looking? I obviously missed all the action in that few minutes in the shower. Oh well, when I calmed down and stopped throwing things I decided that I’ll try again, maybe tomorrow, with a fresh bag. Anyway it goes to show that vertical or horizontal makes no great difference to the squirrels, which is what I wanted to find out.

But it wasn’t a good day for the cams anyway. My next clip was captured at the pumpkin feeder and I forgot that I’d set the capture for one frame per second so I ended up with an unintentional timelapse clip instead of proper live motion (see Clip Two below).

Eventually I did get a fairly good clip from the pumpkin feeder; in Clip Three you’ll see one squirrel being ousted by another, who, as it turns out, isn’t interested in the pumpkin anyway. I wonder if this is just a senior squirrel pulling rank for the sake of it, and if so, how seniority is decided?

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This post and the videos 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…

The clip below features the bag feeder again, being relieved of the very last few of today’s nuts. The feeder no longer presents any kind of challenge to the squirrels, who emptied the bag by lunchtime.

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This post, as well as the pictures 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…

Chris writes:

Five squirrels in the shot and I missed it … typical

Ah-ha! But I didn’t! Here are 2 short (the first one is a little longer, but not too much) videos from the end of the day yesterday that I had the opportunity to catch…

A group of squirrels, about 4 or 5 on Camera 8 (there’s another behind the pumpkin, and one in the swing), about 6:30pm or so EST (3:30pm PST), taken from Video 1

A squirrel trying to move the “pillow feeder”, taken from Video 2

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Although written by me (Zach), the pictures and video in this post 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…

Here’s a squirrel who just can’t figure out how to get into the pillow feeder at all (I decided to christen this the “pillow” feeder, as that’s what it is, really - heavily derivative of Zach Glenwright’s Backyard Bag Feeder Project but more basic and really just a pillow with a plastic cover). Anyway he sticks with it, with admirable determination and a bit of thought, and does eventually get his reward. I love movies with happy endings

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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…

Now here’s an ambitious squirrel. Not content with just taking a nut, he decides he’s going to take the entire feeder. Luckily I had the foresight to tie it down, so he doesn’t succeed, but he sure tries. Eventually an entirely different squirrel gets the nut.

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This post, as well as the pictures 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…

I’m not sure if you (Chris) captured this also, but I checked into the pillow feeder cam feed just about the time of the 1st clip below (”If at first you don’t succeed…”) and saw something interesting happen a little while after the “ambitious squirrel” - a first sight for me anyway, a Black Squirrel (or at least it looks like a Black Squirrel) taking it’s chance with the feeder!

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Although written by me (Zach), the picture and video in this post 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…

This one’s for Zach, who doesn’t see too many black squirrels. It appears at the top left about 20 seconds in, after a grey has helped itself to a nut from the pillow feeder.

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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…

I suspended the pillow feeder this morning, not too far off the ground, just to see what would happen. Initially it was simple for the squirrels to get at the easy nuts at the bottom, as seen in the clip below.

Unfortunately I had to be elsewhere this afternoon so I wasn’t able to monitor the cam and couldn’t check the pillow till I got back. When I did get back, at dusk, I went and took a look and every single nut had gone, including the difficult ones at the top. So this hasn’t been a challenge to the squirrels either and I missed all the action. I’ll try the same setup tomorrow but I don’t expect it to last any longer than this one.

One problem with this setup was pointed out by Zach, the risk of a squirrel getting trapped inside the bag. So I turned the bag around and opened both sides. That, of course, makes it easier for the squirrels to get in there without having to chew their way in. But if I have the top and bottom open instead, the nuts fall out the bottom. I can’t think of any other safety measure that would work equally well, so the smarter squirrels are just getting in the side of the bag rather than having to work for their nuts. If anyone thinks of a better feeder idea that isn’t likely to accidentally suffocate a squirrel, do let me know.

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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…

I was at work last night during all of the pillow feeder project’s main debut from the hanging bars, so I couldn’t watch it as it was going on, but I still able to catch some shots at home! How? I wrote a small script a few months ago in case there was something interesting going on somewhere that I wanted to record for a few minutes and I wasn’t there, that someone could activate with one push, and I used that to roll on the feed for a little time (have I mentioned before how I have no life…?) I took a quick peek in at about 4:30 and saw the feeder had changed, so I had a friend run the script and recorded from about 5:40-7pm, EST (2:40-4pm PST), thinking that was when most of the action would take place - at least an hour after I noticed it was now hung up (give some time for the squirrels to refamiliarize themselves after you go back inside, wait a little longer for squirrels to get interested again in the feeder, and then they’ll start coming…) And I was right!

Here are 2 videos from that 80 minute block that are different than the clip of the squirrel going in the bag:
• Video 1 - Squirrels trying to get to the nuts on the bottom by making holes in the bag, not going through the side of the bag

*Something* happened in between video 1 and 2, I’m not sure what, but something fell on top of the lens (the protector for another cam?) and the shot zoomed out, and then…

• Video 2 -
Squirrels getting (or trying to get) the nuts on the top of the bag… One thing cool about that is they can actually hold on to that bag pretty well, almost as if they were on a tree - even hanging from the side of it! It must help to have claws that can dig into trees…

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Although written by me (Zach), the picture and video in this post 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…

I was rooting around in the garage and found a mat that was left by the previous owner. It was apparently intended as a mat to stand pots on when you’re potting up plants, but it had a solid half-inch foam backing - maybe just what I was looking for. So I cut a number of holes in it with my trusty Swiss army knife and put a peanut in each hole, then popped the mat in the front of the pillow feeder. Is this going to be too much of a challenge for the squirrels, or are they going to catch on straight away? We’ll see.

The weather has finally deteriorated here and it rained last night, and is still grey and threatening more rain. I don’t know how much this will affect squirrel activity, but I do know they don’t like their feed to be soggy. Again, we’ll have to wait and see whether they’re still so attracted to the feeders or whether they’ll start to resort to digging up their nuts now that the weather has changed.

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This post and the picture 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…

Well that didn’t survive long. I was in and out this afternoon so I didn’t see who was responsible for the original damage, but I did get a few clips of subsequent visitors and will post them up later on. I guess I can go on using the remains of this feeder for a bit longer, as it still has some nuts in it and is still a challenge even as it is, but it really hasn’t lasted anywhere nearly as long as I’d expected!

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This post and the picture 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…

Here’s some footage from this afternoon’s assorted attempts to raid the pillow feeder, which were largely unsuccessful while I was monitoring though two squirrels did win a nut each. The clip does end rather abruptly but I had to go out at that point and it was dusk by the time I got back. I think, assuming that there is about the same amount of feeder left to work with after the breakfast period tomorrow, that I’ll probably refill what’s left and put it back up as it is. I also noted that even though there are nuts loose in the bottom, because the feeder is swinging this is a really hard part of it for the squirrels to get a hold of … so I think I’ll tempt them by putting a few more loose nuts down there and seeing if they work out a way to get in.

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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…

As has been the trend the last few days (especially when there’s a new design!), I also recorded the pillow feeder feed last night… but not without some problems… I missed the *first* squirrel by just a few minutes - I could only check in every hour, hour and a half or so to see if anything had changed with the feeder, so I did it when I had a chance to… At 5:45pm EST (2:45 PST) or so, I checked in and saw the first squirrel working away at the top of the feeder, so again I called to start rolling! … Besides that, the computer apparently kicked me off 3 or 4 times in the middle of the feed, and I wasn’t there to restart it, so I missed quite a bit of the middle section, but most of that video is on Chris’s post below this one - so for the complete day (minus the first squirrel and about 40-50 minutes in the middle), here are some more of the shots from the pillow feeder, just to fill in the blanks… If you want to see the whole day, watch the first 11 minutes of my recording, then Chris’s video, then the end of my video… Sorry about the length of the video if it’s too long!

Even if they look like they have a problem getting the nuts from the feeder when it’s swinging, it doesn’t look like that to me! They don’t seem to have that much of a problem at all! - I thought they would be royally confused with this version of the feeder, but they’re as dexterous as ever trying to get the nuts out of the bag! I love the way they just hang onto it like a tree! I have to try something similar to this for next year’s tapings! With a side shot, and an under shot, and…
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Although written by me (Zach), the picture and video in this post 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…

I had to reverse the foam inlay for the feeder today, as the side which was outward yesterday was so badly chewed up that it was unusable. I also inverted the foam so that most of the nuts were nearer the bottom, and just for a twist I added some extra nuts behind the foam as well. The bag was sealed all round.

Within 15 minutes of putting the feeder up, a squirrel had arrived and chewed a hole at the top as before …

… and here’s the culprit, trying very hard to look like a tree branch …

After that, nothing at all happened for a while. And then, a very smart squirrel decided that the way to deal with today’s challenge wasn’t through the top or the outside at all, but to chew a hole in the side instead, and get in that way. He successfully got past the foam and helped himself to the nuts from the back of the foam, saving himself the trouble of having to chew through the front. These guys are smart, make no mistake about that!

So far, this is the only squirrel which has tackled the feeder today as far as I know, the others have either been elsewhere or maybe are taking a break until tomorrow.

Clip follows …

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This post, as well as the pictures 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…

Chris wrote (on the demise of the original design of the Mark 2 Pillow Feeder):

“I had to reverse the foam inlay for the feeder today, as the side which was outward yesterday was so badly chewed up that it was unusable.“

Hanging on!

Well, this is what led to the foam being unusable, the morning session of November 3rd. During the day on the 2nd, a few squirrels managed to tear a hole in the feeder and get some of the nuts out of the top of the bag, but no one attempted much with the nuts on the bottom that I could see. That all changed the next morning! … at least 2 squirrels alternated back and forth at taking turns on the feeder, some going as far to hang on to nothing other than the bag to get to the nuts on the side! One of the more interesting thing about the morning besides watching all of the squirrels figure out how to get the nuts out of the bag was that most of the action was done by Black squirrels! I’d say about 70%-80% of the squirrels that trashed the Mark 2 were black squirrels! A rare sight for me, anyway! The video (yes, it’s long again, sorry!) of all that went on to require the re-building of the Mark 2 is below… all 21 minutes of it… the squirrels are busy in the morning!

Of course, it’ll be interesting to see what happens tomorrow morning! Especially since there wasn’t much attention paid to the feeder (except for the “side squirrel”) in the afternoon!

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Although written by me (Zach), the picture and video in this post 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…