No - I don't 'like' them. They're not adorable in any way Â
They're now making inroads into Perthshire - a stronghold of our native red. We have around 75% of the red squirrel population up here, so it's a massive problem, and the various attempts to curb them aren't working. Pine martens can keep on top of them, but the greys are adapting quicker than the martens can annihilate them. Not the squirrels' fault, but it's a major issue now, and not to be dismissed lightly.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
We’ve not had any problems since we put baffles over our two main feeders, and that’s quite a few years now. We only put up the small niger seed feeder this summer, after seeing a goldfinch in the garden. No baffle, and the young squirrels would hang by their feet from the top, front paws round the feeder, and eat the niger seeds out of the holes. However, once it got about half way down they couldn’t reach the lower holes and gave up. Id certainly recommend the baffles though, as long as there are no nearby branches the squirrels can use to launch across from. We still lose quite a few suet nibbles to jackdaws, who are quite good at hanging onto the feeders, but I don’t mind them, at least they count as birds!
I found a squirrel baffle, which fits onto the pole of my feeder, on Amazon. It was about £15.00, very easy to fit and totally successful at stopping the rats, which was my problem. I watched a rat climb up under the baffle but no way could it reach around the edge of it so I am assuming the same would apply to squirrels of which I have almost none. The baffle is basically a cone of metal which clips onto the feeding station pole.
Posts
They're now making inroads into Perthshire - a stronghold of our native red. We have around 75% of the red squirrel population up here, so it's a massive problem, and the various attempts to curb them aren't working. Pine martens can keep on top of them, but the greys are adapting quicker than the martens can annihilate them.
Not the squirrels' fault, but it's a major issue now, and not to be dismissed lightly.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Id certainly recommend the baffles though, as long as there are no nearby branches the squirrels can use to launch across from.
We still lose quite a few suet nibbles to jackdaws, who are quite good at hanging onto the feeders, but I don’t mind them, at least they count as birds!
That’s my baby.
All one and a half foot of it!
Nothing, but nothing will defeat one of these ms it’s a pleasure to watch them try.