Big birds get hungry too

For Christmas, Mom and Pat gave me a nice bird feeder to put in the backyard. We filled the feeder up with food and the birds ignored it completely for almost a month. After this incredible lag time, we looked outside one day and saw birds on the feeder and queued up on the branches above it.

Unfortunately, one day in early Spring we came home and found the feeder on the ground in shreds. A squirrel (or a rogue band of squirrels with anger issues?) had attacked the top of the feeder and somehow managed to tear/eat/bite/gnaw the top to smithereens. Bye-bye bird feeder.

Since our bird friends were now used to getting a meal at our house, Keith and I jumped in the car and went to Home Depot where we promptly bought another feeder - this time a wooden house.

The wooden house worked great for a couple of months, until the wood expanded/contracted around the staples one too many times and sent the unit crashing to the ground. Keith bolted the feeder back together and it lasted a few more months before it crashed to the ground and the wood splintered into smithereens. Bye-bye bird feeder.

On our next trip to Home Depot we became more creative. This time we purchased a nice "tube" type unit made of mostly plastic with a bit of metal. This unit appeared to be more promising than the rest, and in fact is still in use. However, what we quickly discovered is that big birds can't feed on this unit - a design mechanism that keeps the squirrels from accessing the food also means that bigger birds are locked out. When the larger bird lands on the perch, their body weight pulls the perch down and covers the door.

We went back to the home improvement store (this time Loew's) and purchased a red metal bird feeder. It's sturdy, it's big, it has side handles for suet during the winter - it should be perfect, right? Alas, no. The pitch of the roof is such that a bigger bird doesn't have the ability to fly down and land correctly. Little birds (sparrows) like it just fine - the big song birds have no use for it.

So, what's one to do about big birds (doves, cardinals, and yes, a few bully blue jays) who are sitting in the trees waiting for a bit to eat?

The professional sales woman at Bird Unlimited listened to my dilimina and sold me the interesting feeder in the picture here. At least 10 feet away from all trees or squirrel launchers, the metal pole supports a large feeding tray where bigger birds can "land flat" which the sales woman says they like to do.

Below the tray is a metal baffle called a "squirrel guard" which the squirrels reportedly can't navigate.

Here's a shot of the "big birds" on their new bird feeder. The feeding tray is gigantic and appears to have space for at least a dozen birds. I think they like their new set-up.