New Platform Feeder

Let's see: currently I've got three bird feeders and a finch thistle sock hanging in the cherry tree/pear tree grove in the front yard, and three feeders outside the kitchen bay window that I can see from my old man's chair in front of the fireplace in the kitchen. There is also a double seed/nut/corn block hanging from a dead limb directly across from the kitchen sink window, with a wire cage for the top one and a squirrel block hanging on the bottom).

But something we rigged up for my mother when I was growing up in Buies Creek was a platform feeder just outside her upstairs kitchen window (the house was a split-foyer home, with a partially below-ground first-floor). This allowed her to put scraps out when she was doing meal clean-up, and that also put the birds and squirrels right up close where we could enjoy watching them.

I picked up a platform feeder at Lowe's not long ago and got it put up on a post a couple of weeks ago. Now I've got a place to dump stale bread and crackers and such, as well as some additional seed for birds who like it that way.

My biggest customers so far have been the grackles. But the blue jays also really like it, and occasionally a cardinal or a titmouse. It hasn't drawn the finches and sparrows yet, that I can tell.



While I've been at the kitchen window washing dishes or doing meal prep, I've watched the yard squirrel studying this platform feeder intently. There's a dead branch that extends out towards the window, from one of the trash trees on the back wall, and I know he's really been mulling over how to get at it.

---

Update: A few days after I wrote this original post, I found that he had finally decided he can just climb the post and then leap off the kitchen windowsill to get up on the feeder. I've only gotten this one quick shot of him so far. And I've now greased the pole with Vaseline as a short-term fix.