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Torn up tube feeder, curious! (1 Viewer)

Tim42

Birder4life
I came home from work today and was switching my feeders around when I noticed one of my tube feeder lids had a large hole ripped out of it piece by piece! The bird(s) took little strips of the plastic to incorporate into their nests, I guess. Does that sound right? I don't know how they started the hole or why since there is plenty of grass and other less hard material to use. :h?:
 
Are you sure it wasn't squirrels Tim? I cannot tell you how many plastic tube feeders the squirrels have chewed apart on me.
 
Last year, I lost two tube feeders to squirrels. They reached down, gnawed half the lid off along with the rim of the feeders and helped themselves to the seed.
 
KCFoggin said:
Are you sure it wasn't squirrels Tim? I cannot tell you how many plastic tube feeders the squirrels have chewed apart on me.
I pretty much doubt it was squirrels because my tube feeders are hanging from the eave of my apartment and the squirrels always visit the feeders on my clothes line pole. Unless they can scale the walls to get to the feeders, but I have never witnessed them attempting to get to the tube feeders. I'll take a digi pic and attach it to show you what it looks like.
 
LOL, I've watched squirrels scale walls and glide from roof top to roof top. You really have to admire their persistance.
 
Here are a couple of pics. See, they look to me more like pecking marks than teeth marks, and, anyway, the feeder is filled with white proso millet and sunflower kernels which the squirrels don't go for. They hog the black oil sunflower seeds. :h?:
 

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I guess you all are right! It's really hard to hate an animal that is sooooo comical and will go thru so much trouble to get something they want. I have a video of two squirrels on one of my feeders. One is trying to eat and the other is annoying the heck out of him. By the way, what site is that where I can post my video?
 
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Tim, I once watched a squirrel analyze a feeder I had hanging out my second story window. Now he was on the roof of the house behind me. A good distance away. Well, so I thought. He sat on that roof and just stared at that feeder and then all at once he jumped and landed right on the feeder. Once he landed, he hung on for dear life as the feeder was swinging all over the place and of course then I interrupted his little adventure and he dropped to the ground and ran.
 
I know, they're amazing! I have a make-shift blocker around the pole I have my feeders on. It's meant to stop squirrels from climbing to the top where they can then crawl to the food. The only thing I can think that they do to get around it is to grab ahold of the rim and climb over. There have been a couple of times when I was home and one of the critters was by the pole and kept begging him 'please show me how you get up the pole!' but he wouldn't do it. I kinda wish I had a surveillance camera in my back yard so I can check out what goes on when I'm at work. When I am home on weekends, nothing seems to happen. |=@|
 
Right now I am dealing with about a dozen grey squirrels and I get extremely frustrated because they will go thru a block of suet in a matter of an hour if I'm not around. I've switched over to all squirrel proof feeders which was not cheap considering I am running more than a dozen seed feeders. I'm just thankful they haven't developed a taste for the food in the hummer feeders.
 
Tim42 said:
Here are a couple of pics. See, they look to me more like pecking marks than teeth marks, and, anyway, the feeder is filled with white proso millet and sunflower kernels which the squirrels don't go for. They hog the black oil sunflower seeds. :h?:


I hate to break it to you but that's exactly what my tube feeders (with more damage to the tube itself) and I WATCHED the squirrel do it!

Definitely squirrel damage. Wily little rodents. :eek!:
 
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