Yes, four out of five squirrels say they prefer Hefty bags to other, smaller makes!

(I wonder if the makers of Hefty bags would be interested in this for a commercial? )

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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…

Last night I filled the pillow feeder with sunflower seeds, putting them all down at the far end away from the opening. I wanted to see if the squirrels would still make the effort to use this feeder when the contents weren’t the more highly sought after peanuts, but just plain old seed.

This morning I see that the bag has been shaken up so that the seeds have moved down to the open end, making them easily accessible, and at least one squirrel is happy to go through the balancing act to get them (see clip below).

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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 refilled the feeder at lunchtime today and had to be out this afternoon, but before I left I did capture the first lunching squirrel using the side entry technique to get the nuts out of the bag (see clip below).

When I got back at about 5pm, all the nuts had gone again. This is going to cost me a fortune in roasted peanuts, so I think perhaps tomorrow I’ll put some sunflower seeds in there and see if the squirrels are still tempted to go through the balancing act for those instead.

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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…

Yesterday afternoon I rebuilt the pillow feeder (had to, they’d gone through all three layers of plastic) and refilled it with nuts. Lunchtime today, every single nut has gone and there are no holes in the pillow at all, so they must have figured out how to get in and out from the open side. I think I can safely say that as a feeder, this is definitely a big success. As a challenge, a total failure, though. Unfortunately there’s no way to tell whether only one squirrel has figured it out or whether several have been feeding here, but if it is only the one squirrel he sure must be getting fat!

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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 is the video from the beginning of the Pillow Feeder Project’s feed from Monday — this is how the squirrel got into the top of the bag… I was going to post this the morning of 11-7, but I both went to bed early and overslept, so… here it is now for those interested…

“Just…a little… more!”

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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…

Did I imply that this feeder would be too tough for the squirrels? I should have known better. The main onslaught began at lunchtime, and as you’ll see from the clip below, the technique was a simple one. First make a hole in the top, which a squirrel had already done earlier, then go in through the hole, grab a nut and get out. It was that easy.

I didn’t capture everything because for the last half hour or so I was building the clip, but when I went back to look at the feeder at about 1.45, every reachable nut had gone. So much for tough challenges!

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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…

The feeder was attacked pretty seriously at breakfast this morning, though the nuts at the bottom remain intact. Interestingly, the squirrel is using the same technique as before: going in through the top, presumably by sitting on the top and digging down. This isn’t really a successful strategy given that all the nuts are at the bottom, so I’m waiting to see if they figure that out and try something different. I intend to leave this one up where it is, even though the chances of actually catching a live shot of a squirrel attack are more remote than when it was nearer ground level, and just see how long it takes for them to figure out a way to get at all those tempting peanuts.

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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…

My version of the Mark 2, with my unique spin, and me, but only s l i g h t l y…

Well, I made my own version of the Mark 2 Pillow Feeder (basicially combining my original Backyard Bag Feeder design and the Mark 2’s vertical orientation) and have a ground-level camera looking up at it… It’s basicially the same design as Chris’s version of the Mark 2, but my father had an idea and designed a dowel-eyering-hanger method of hanging it up which restricts the whole thing to a total of 180º of motion - good for both the shot and the squirrels! A little sidenote here - he’s designed and built most if not all of my fixtures for my project, the wooden platforms, the overhead shot rail system, ground-level 6″ tripod mounts, etc., etc., just not the bag feeder design and idea themselves - so I wanted to get his unique take on the idea…

Of course, having history as my guide with these radicially new kinds of projects, I really have absolutely no confidence in this working today. I didn’t have peanuts, so I had to use various shelled nuts and seeds… There are construction people that are going to be all over tomorrow, so there’s a whole bunch of distraction there! Let’s see… usually, the squirrels around here seem to nitpick everything for a few weeks until they finally make the jump (in this case, quite literally), it’s coooold around here now (do I ever stop complaining about the weather?), there’s cables and cameras (one for now anyway) looking at it that weren’t there before, and it just took so long to put together, it just has to fail (oh, and I’m a pessimist sometimes too…) Of course, I could be proven wrong! I didn’t record the Cam 4 feeder at all last night (but I did check in once and see a squirrel on the rope), so I’m not sure if this version of the feeder will be even noticed - maybe it needs to be about a foot off of the ground?

We will see… at least it’s right next to the bird feeder, so maybe that’ll help it a little…

Same shot, 6:35am EST, with noticable squirrel in the background!

I was watching the squirrels from the window, and aside from an early one that got into the side of the bag, the rest have been going up and down the rope behind it without taking the hint. Judging from their pauses and inspections I’d say they all recognize this feeder, even though it’s moved, but because the nuts were on the wrong side they couldn’t see them, so they just passed by. I have now turned the bag around so that the nuts can be seen by the squirrels who use the rope to go to and from the tree, but unfortunately the lighting on this side isn’t too good. Still, you never know and perhaps we’ll still catch something interesting.

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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…

The pillow feeder has moved to camera 4 and is now suspended about five feet above ground, which would be a challenge to even the most athletic squirrel if it were just hanging there, but it is also on the same stand as the very popular tray feeder and only about a foot away, so any squirrel on the tray will see the nuts tempting it. There is a rope behind the feeder too, so access is hard but not impossible. I don’t know if any of the squirrels will be up to taking this on, but nothing ventured … and all that. We’ll see.

I see peanuts … but can I get at them … ?

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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…

As promised yesterday, here is the video from yesterday’s morning session, the session that seemingly did away with the current version of the Mark 2 Pillow Feeder…

Balancing act!

As I watched the video as it was going on, I thought that maybe half as much went on as did on the morning of the 3rd… but I was wrong! The final edited version of everything that went on on the 4th turned out to be nearly a half an hour long! (once again, sorry to the people that prefer the ‘condensed version’…) The squirrels (it seemed like it was just one Gray squirrel this time) worked and worked on the bag, especialy training it’s attention to the bottom of the feeder, where all of the nuts were located after Chris turned the foam around! Nothing stands in the way of a squirrel and it’s nuts! There was one strange thing I saw though - there was at least one point much later on where a squirrel was chewing on the Nu-Foam material in the inner bag (was that where the other peanuts were hidden?) It did not eat it, it just chewed on it for about 3 seconds and spit it out - still… strange… maybe that section had a hint of peanut left on it? Or, maybe it was sizing up the Nu-Foam as quality nest-building material…?

I watched the new incarnation of the Pillow Feeder a little while last night too, just checking in here and there… I couldn’t tell exactly what was going on though - what’s in the feeder now? are they supposed to go in through the sides? I rolled on it for a somewhat shorter time than the other nights (about 45 minutes) towards the end of the night, and I didn’t see any interested squirrels (one or 2 passed by, and one crawled on the top of the feeder, but they quickly left) … maybe the morning will spell the outcome of this new design?

As for my test with my squirrels, I’m going to try to make a similar hanging feeder project next week if I get some time to devote to it… only I’m going to suspend mine a little higher off of the ground than the Pillow Feeder - I wonder if it’ll work as well 3 feet up…? They won’t be able to get to it from the ground, only be able to hang off of the sides of it… somehow I doubt it’ll do well, but I didn’t think any suspended bag feeder would work and I was proven wrong!

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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 wasn’t around for breakfast this morning but judging from this, it was hectic. There goes another version of the feeder, well chewed through again.

Footnote: When I recovered the feeder and took it apart, there wasn’t one single nut left. They’d got all the nuts in the holes plus every nut that was hidden behind, too. Remarkable. Now it’s time to consider giving them a greater challenge, but offhand I can’t think of anything they wouldn’t figure out how to defeat!

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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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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 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…