I’ve had to post something about this in my blog. It’s just that ridiculous.
I have three backyard feeders, one of which was for niger seed, another for safflower and the largest being for sunflower, peanuts and misc seed.
For some reason this combination never worked.
The niger seed feeder, which is popular at times with the goldfishes, is apparently too close to the wall and squirrels scare them.
The safflower seed feeder was raided by squirrels, who in this area apparently like to eat it – Even though the experts all think they don’t.
And the larger feeder is being constantly raided by grackles, who scare off the smaller birds and blue jays and empty is out just for the sunflower seeds and peanuts I had added to the mix for the blue jays, chickadees, nuthatches and cardinals.
ARGH !
Even the spicy squirrel proof seed I replaced the safflower with was apparently to the squirrels’ liking. Both the gray and black squirrels just thought it was Mexican Fiesta time !
Yes, they ate thought it more slowly but they still managed to empty it out.
DOUBLE ARGH !!
So now I will be using the more expensive safflower and niger seed in my feeders from April to October. There’s no way to avoid it without paying for yet another series of feeders.
Grackle don’t like either so I’ll be using it in the main feeder but I wont make the mistake of putting it in any feeder accessible to squirrels.
The problem though is that without the white millet I wont be attracting as many mourning doves and dark eyed juncos during the season. And I wont be seeing as many nuthatches and blue jays without the peanuts and sunflower seeds during the summer either.
I could buy a squirrel and grackle proof feeder but I don’t underestimate my local squirrels. I don’t think the feeders would stand a chance.
Knowing these squirrels they’d probably try to nibble it open, or hand upside down to get the seeds or try to make it fall and crack open. And at more than $60 per feeder, I don’t think I’d want to risk it. My largest feeder and the feeder’s pole & baffler cost less than $30.
I’m going to keep an eye out for other solutions though cause I already miss my chipmunks from my previous address and I would love to keep as many of the little critters around, including the gray squirrels and grackles.
BTW, here are some of my backyard videos, in case you haven’t seen them already :
