Not a Raccoon
I have an update on my bird feeders. The current state of my feeder setup is this:
(sound of sad trombone music)
I started having problems with critters pulling over and eating the contents of the feeders, which I blamed on raccoons (and which for the first one, probably was). So after the second round, where they actually carried the seed tube off into the woods, never to be seen again, I did research about ways to make the feeders more raccoon resistant. the short answer: good luck, but a stronger pole sunk deeper into the ground, and feeders placed higher out of reach often helps. So that’s what I did:
that lasted — under two days.
So yeah… and note the pole is noticeably bent. And there seem to be no feeders visible.
Fortunately, I’d put up my trap camera (finally), to catch those pesky raccoons in the act for my amusement. Here’s what I saw:
That’s not a raccoon (and yes, my trap cam time is off by 12 hours. ooops). It’s a black bear, rather nice size; Laurie thinks it’s a 2nd year male, so first year not with mom and foraging to get ready for hibernation. It wandered right up to the feeder, hauled it down, carried off the tube feeder, returned about five minutes later and grabbed the suet feeder and wandered off again — both are missing and a search of the area found nothing…
It seems clear to me this isn’t the bear’s first feeder raid…
So… I have a problem, in that the idea of “bear proofing” a set of feeders is a bit silly. I did spend some time planning out stringing a cable from the house to a tree, and using ropes and pulleys to raise the feeders above bear height, and… and… yeah.
The best answer seems to be putting the feeders out when I come to work in the morning, and bringing them inside in the evening. Which somewhat hopes I won’t just get a bear showing up for a mid-day snack. Once the bear goes into hibernation, it won’t be a problem, but I’d rather not try to time that.
So… I’ve bought parts to put up the third generation feeder (and bought new feeders to replace the now missing replacement feeders). For the next two weeks, though, no feeders out, since I don’t want to have anything around that might encourage the bear to see this as part of a standard route. After that, I’ll put things up again, put them out in the morning when I come downstairs to the office, bring them in when I’m done for the day or away for any period of time, and we’ll see how it goes. If I lose another round of feeders, I might just give up, but I have hopes I can manage this.
Also noted this weekend as I was walking the grounds looking for the missing feeders:
Also, also noted: we have about a dozen fruit trees on the property, mostly apples and some asian pears. And a week ago, a number of the trees had fruit on them we had left because the birds had already gotten to them. Yesterday, I noted all the trees are bare. Someone’s been busy….
