Tweets,

That's quite a tale, Dianne...and I thought our squirrels were devious! All
they did was chew the bottom completely off of the "starling-proof" covered,
wooden feeder hanging from our pergola. It took them awhile to get
sufficiently motivated for the task, but they dropped, scrambled and even
leapt from below it until they mastered it, and still couldn't really get
their fill of the suet. So they chewed off the bottom of the frame so that
the wire grid dropped off entirely. I don't blame them, they were breeding,
I've seen the baby squirrels. But I've cut them off the goodies for now, and
taken down the feeders, too...they eventually drift away after easier food.
We have allowed a suet basket feeder to remain closer to the house, where
they only traffic appears to be birds.

As for rats- yeah, we used to have those too- but they went away when we
removed the English ivy- not only an invasive species itself, but a
veritable red-light district for pests. (Slugs, too!) And we did not run any
feeders near the house until very recently- we also suspect we've had some
help from owls- we heard them regularly in the summer...

Well, I hope our yard pests don't get bigger ideas- like chewing my house
down...

Hilary Barnes
Bellevue, WA
habarnes at earthlink.net