On 28/07/2012 19:22, rbel wrote:
On Sat, 28 Jul 2012 16:41:53 +0100, Martin Brown
wrote:

On 28/07/2012 16:28, Moonraker wrote:

I am heartily sick of squirrels getting the lion's share of my bird
food. As fast as I get rid of squirrels new ones come to replace them.
Has anyone experience of those for sale? If so which are useless and
which are good? The only problem that I can see is that the pair of
woodpeckers (well I say pair maybe they are just friends) will be unable
to feed. any help most welcomed. TIA

I have a standard bird feeder but use the threaded hole on the underside
to attach it to the top of a 15mm copper pipe (using standard cheap
compression plumbing fittings - the official kit is overpriced).
Squirrels cannot climb smooth copper pipe and it is amusing to watch
them try.


That is interesting Martin as our squirrels learned that if they took
a run and a jump and did not pause in their climbing they could manage
all the way to the top of our copper pipe support without too much
difficulty. It could be that as the pipe is 22mm there is sufficient
extra surface area to cling to. If they do pause they slide quite
gracefully back to ground level.

Could be a grip thing or maybe your squirrels are more numerous and
smarter than ours. I did forget to mention greasing the pole.

You can also get dome shaped clear things like the devices to stop rats
climbing ships mooring ropes but I have never needed to.

After trying greasing the pole for a while I fixed a (Gardman?) anti
squirrel dome a metre or so up the pipe which completely solved the
problem.

The plumbing bits are certainly much cheaper than at the garden centre!

The trouble with the cage type feeders is that whilst they do exclude
the larger corvids such as magpies they do the same for Greater
Spotted Woodpeckers which we are more than happy to see.

We do get the odd crow and starling - partly because the more rigid
mount doesn't sway so much when the land. But they have to be very agile
because I shortened the landing posts to compensate.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown