As an experiment, after reading of all the failures of squirrel-proof bird feeders, I bought a small bag of hot pepper birdseed. Quite expensive but in the interest of science and all that. Well I put a small amount in the feeder and waited. Syd eventually showed up and made himself comfortable in the sun feeder. He took his first morsel and almost fell out of the feeder! He leaped up to the fence and froze for about 15 minutes. Then he did a quick survey of the other feeding stations and struck out each time. He did find a few peanuts I had put out for the blue jays and took a few apparently to get the bad taste out of his mouth. After that, he left, and I haven’t seen again today. The second half of the experiment is to see whether the birds will eat this very expensive product. I should know more tomorrow when they stop in for their morning snack. I did see a few juncos eating but since I took down the tube feeder, the sparrows and finches have not been around much. Tune in tomorrow.
@phil_howcroft The agreement we reached was I could continue to feed them using suet feeders as long as I didn’t attract critters. If this pepper stuff works, maybe I can negotiate even more.
