I think the point here is not the genius of the squirrel but its determination in succeeding. An admirable trait that we might emulate ourselves when it comes to achieving our goals in life. As an aside, move that flower pot and you will have succeeded as well. :)
Roland, you know nothing about squirrels if you believe that moving the flower pot will stop that squirrel. I made a bird pole out of a 20 foot PVC pipe thinking it would be too slick for squirrels to climb. WRONG! Up they go ---easy as you please. I added a slinky and it kept them off for a whole two days before they figured out how to use it to climb on up! I have the bird feeders on pulleys so I can lower them to add seed and raise them back up to about 10 feet or more off the ground. The squirrels climb to the top of the PVC to the 'arms' or cross poles, then climb down about 18" to 24" or more on some very skinny but strong rope to the feeders and eat the feed meant for the birds. It's amazing to watch the squirrels leap 10 feet to the ground when I let the dogs out! Apparently, they have not figured out that the dogs can't get to them 10 feet up.
I’m not sure who I’m more impressed with, the patience of the squirrel, or the patience of the person who literally held that camera for 8 1/2 minutes in the off chance that squirrel would defeat the new barrier.
One by one, every squirrel in the woods had to come by and try out our hot wired varmint deterring bird feeder. One by one, they learned what 10,000 volts feels like, and never returned.
He was definitely doing some calculations! Totally earned that snack! It's great to that Mother Nature provides us with the best entertainment! I could hear the mission impossible music all the way through that!
twitching tail... calculates distance to jump... front paws in pensive pose... mind calculating risks... gathering chi... wishing he were a flying squirrel... 😉 Found the right launching spot!
I bought a small electric fence unit made to keep rabbits out of a garden and connected one wire to the poll and one to the bird feeder. No danger to the birds as they cannot touch both at the same time. When the squirrel goes up the poll and reaches for the bird feeder he gets a little jolt and jumps down. Haven't seen him back.
It was actually a gift for my Mother in her Garden, so I don't see it everyday. The Baffle does stop them, but squirrels are crafty little things and some are brave enough to try leaping from a distance at it. So you just need to make sure there is nothing nearby that they could use to jump at it. She also now has a small squirrel nut feeder which is near the ground and tends to keep them busy so they don't bother the birds.
Shows how easy it is to build a squirrel proof bird feeder. I've been operating one like this 50 years, however: I am delighted so many You Tubers never figure this out as the antics of they and their squirrels are so much fun to watch.
I give the squirrels in our yard seeds on coffee cup saucers spaced about four feet apart. (6 if your social distancing). This keeps them happy and everyone can coexist with no drama. Makes for some good picture ops too. To me a bunch of squirrels, sitting at separate plates looks kind of like an outdoor restaurant.
@@wallacewithoutgromit You don't need to build a squirrel proof feeder. Just add Capsaicin to the seed. Birds are not effected by it, but us Humans and Squirrels hate a burning mouth.
Yours might be different, but my “bowl” goes above the part that screws onto the pole. The bowl isn’t stationary. It can lean when the squirrel jump on it, spilling the squirrel to the ground. I had mine set up like you at first.
The most effective way to to dispose of grey squirrels IN MY YARD is the Havahart model # 1083 EZ-set, 1 door trap. I don't have the time or energy to be making home made traps by hand. I have used the Havahart EZ-set # 1083 to dispose of 360 grey squirrels since June 2014. The 1-door EZ-set traps save me time in 3 different ways: 1) They are much easier and faster to set than 2 door traps. 2) they are also much easier to bait because you just put the bait behind the trigger plate, instead of trying to balance the bait on top of the trigger plate. I have had the 1030 go off in my hand from the motion while walking with it. Very annoying. 3) I don't have any false alarms any more because the 1083 is NEVER set off by small birds. It takes a 1 pound animal to set off the 1083 and almost all grey squirrels weigh at least 1 pound. That is important if you are not home to keep checking your traps. You will never catch a squirrel, if the trap is closed for hours with a small bird inside. I used to use a 1030 for grey squirrels but since I bought 2 of the EZ set traps I stopped using the older model trap. Every squirrel that I dispose of is 1 less squirrel that will ravage my garden of tomatoes and my bird feeders. I take them all to the exact same spot in the nearby woods and allow scavengers like possums to have the carcass. Win-Win Possums are unfairly maligned by many people simply because of the way they look Home Depot and Lowes do not stock the 1083 but I was able to get them online for about $35 via Amazon WRZ 2020-08-14 Chester County, PA
That is brilliant....just when we thought that we had out witted the squirrel he showed that, with perserverance, he could out baffle the baffel. Will now have to move that ornamental pot that he launched himslef off.
It isn't determination that got the squirrel over the hemisphere. It was careful calculating. He figured out that the only path past the baffle would be through the air.
We have determined squirrels like this. We had to raise the height of our bird feeder, make sure it was in the centre of the lawn so they had nothing to climb and get the baffle at just the right position. Takes some tweaking but you can beat them.
The power company up here where I live Pacific Gass & Electric has a constant problem with squirrels getting into the high voltage equipment, and getting fried, and causing a blackout. Where I worked one day I heard very loud explosion outside, and all the lights went out. We called and reported the problem, and went out to investigate. We found a small smoldering squirrel laying at the base of the power pole. In honer of the small rodent, who gave his life in the exploration of electrical equipment we named our company's softball team the flaming squirrels
OMG. It's like you could see him doing the math when he was sitting on the beam, and the "candlestick-like" decoration below. Wow. I have a squirrel that swings from my birdfeeder, causes it to swing like mad and dump all the seeds out, then he drops down and collects his bounty. I don't want to hurt squirrels...but these things are really getting on my nerves (and my expense list!) =M=
I am TOTALLY with you there with regards to them getting on my nerves! I'm running out of ideas to keep them out of my 'little house' bird feeder that sits on the hook of a 72" pole with TWO baffles (top and bottom)!! They have their own food that I put out for them. Bought a little squirrel picnic table (Amazon) where I put bird seeds and a half of corn on and they still look to the hanging feeder to gobble up their food! URRGGH! They sit there a study how to scale the pole (no luck there cos I spray it with vegetable oil) So they find a jump off point - which is usually the upstairs balcony and jump down on the baffle and hang upside down inside the feeder to get the peanuts inside! I even took a long piece of tape and made a nail skirt to tape on the top of the feeder (to deter not to hurt them); he gets around that too!!! These are the most determined rodents I've ever seen!!
They're a lot smarter than we think they are and then you add determination and persistence in and they almost always win ... however I am having a lot of success with the Rollerfeeder ...
They're not just good climbers, they're great leapers. Imagine a sphere seven feet around the feeders and make sure nothing but the pole is in that sphere, including the ground and the baffle itself.
Squirrel baffles must be at least 5' off the ground, as squirrels can jump up to 4 1/2', and at least 10' away from trees or buildings to work properly
Squirrels love peanuts and peanut butter. I began trapping squirrels at the base of my feeders 4 years ago thinking that if I disposed of a handful they would all be gone. 260 squirrels later they continue to come! I think one of my neighbors is busing them in from somewhere else but I can't prove it.
Amazing how he tried out different heights to see how effective each would be. You could see him looking upward and even going on each one to assess if it would work. Then when he found one that would do the trick, he took no time in making the jump. He thought about the problem and came up with a solution.
I fought them, trapped, and carried them off to the woods at the river. If you think you are going to win, you are fighting a losing battle. Finally, one day i was at Tractor Supply and found squirrel proof feeders. They can get up to them , but can't get food out of them. When they get on them to feed the feeder goes down and the hole is not available. They now feed on the ground. I just put some sunflower seeds on the ground for them and the doves. The feeder cost $20.
Damn straight. I have two and zip tie them to long, bare branches with nothing they can hang off and use for leverage...because (for anyone else reading) they WILL do that and pull the feeder close enough to chew the plastic around the holes, getting more of the seed and causing a crapload to fall out any time a bird lands on it. I learned this the hard way...it only closes if they actually jump on it. I check the zip ties a couple of times daily to ensure they aren't chewing them (which would cause the entire thing to come crashing down if they did), but leaving the ends uncut seems to spook them away when it taps them as they go by. Haha. It took a couple tries with the placement of my second one due to a different type of tree but now the pricks don't even try most days...and it's beautiful. Lol. If only they had left my bird feeders alone I'd still be filling up theirs, but nooooooo....the gluttonous little dinks just COULDN'T STOP eating...or digging and chewing into my lawn, fascia and soffit, for that matter. I don't feel bad for them at all at this point and they deserve every bit of my disdain. It feels nice to win against such a formidable foe, doesn't it? 😉😊
For years, I noticed that squirrels use rapid fire tail movements to increase the length of a jump. My video is called Squirrel Tail Propulsion and was filmed in slow motion .
Squirrels are very smart and very clever. This was something that seemed to be impossible but he studied and figured out a way. I feed squirrels and know what they are able to do and they constantly surprise me.
An excellent squirrel feeder design! (Squirrels are one of the most intelligent rodents, and a good squirrel feeder should be designed to exercise that intelligence.)
We have a metal baffle on a "squirrel proof" feeder....darn thing got past the baffle and chewed a hole through the front of the feeder which is plastic. Hubby used some stainless steel wired mesh across the front but the rodent is still trying to get seed!
At the end, the squirrel even didn't eat much seeds. It was more like "Just to ensure myself that I can do it. Food is not the goal". Beautiful creatures. Way more interresting and cute than cats.
Great patience recording this lil fellah. After such persistance , I would have allowed it to get his belly full as well! I'll find them in my platform feeders from time to time: If they "make it" to it they win the prize.
LOL!!!! Squirrels can leap and jump farther than you think and are very smart in figuring out how to get to food. And they dont give up, very persistent. I thought at first the Squirrel was going to try and leap from the tall Red post to the feeders at the beginning of the video. Hard sometimes making a bird feeders full proof from Squirrels. Thanks for the video
i can see and feel his frustration as he tries to stratadise how to pull this off this reminds me of a cartoon i used to watch called screwy squirrel it had all mischief and sneaky tactics seen hear and more
well they better stay in Canada. I live 5 min. from border in VT and blast every single one I see. especially reds. reds are highly aggressive toward greys. they actually pushed them out of the area at my first house in sheldon. leave the reds where they drop and take greys home to eat. goes good with cute little bunnies. no sarcasm here either. makes a nice game stew.
Ricky Spanish you asshole, the grey squirrels are the invaders! The red ones are endangered! Anyone half intelligent will call the cops if they see you shooting them.
I first installed one of Wildbird's bell baffles (it came with the complete set up). Eventually, the squirrels raced up the pole, reached out, tipped the baffle and gained enough traction through momentum to catapult over the baffle to the feeders. I'd even greased the pole with silicon grease and it didn't stop them. The grease eventually gets tacky and they weren't sliding down. Then I purchased a 24" wide steel baffle. Hah! Didn't work either (well, so far... I'm going to move it down incrementally to see if that does the trick). In the meantime, my squirrels easily jump from the pole under the baffle to the feeders. IMO, Wildbird's feeder hooks are too low so their feeders hang down too far. A 6" pole extension might do the trick.
Now you know how he got past it... move the feeder or the pot he used to get a boost and make it too far to jump. Add a high voltage fence shocker to the pole so when he tries to climb he gets zapped
This is why I don't waste my money on squirrel deterrents such as baffles, spicy bird food etc. I just set up a small cage trap with peanuts and corn in a bowl.
YOU CAN SEE THE INTELLIGENCE GOING ON IN THAT BRAIN,,,,,,,,,,,PROBABLY A LOT MORE THAN IN SOME PEOPLE I KNOW.............WE COULD TAKE A LESSON FROM THESE GUYS IN DETERMINATION AND NOT GIVING UP..........THERE'S ALWAYS A SOLUTION...............
