I did not want to feed our squirrels.
They could jump from the top of a nearby fence -- first they jumped on top, but they could not get from there to the inside. But then they learned to jump from the fence directly to grab onto the bottom of the feeder....
So I ordered some Nixalite and mounted 4 feet of it along the fence the squirrels were jumping from:
Then they would jump onto the screen on the window, and then from there grab onto the bottom of the feeder and climb in. So I removed the screen (it was winter, so we weren't using the screen) -- and I washed the window --note how much clearer the pix are now!
I thought they might be leaping from a bit of brickwork at the corner of the house, so I attached more Nixalite around half of the feeder top. And of course that gave the squirrel something to hold onto, to get in from the top:
I took it off from around the top of the feeder, but then they could jump to the top, slide down and get hold of the aluminum edge of the window frame, and from there climb in to the bottom. Impressive!
So I mounted a strip of nixalite on the window frame edge, and made a loop-o'-nixalite for the top.
At first, the squirrels found them to be unpleasant:
But then they got so they could just climb down the vertical strip and reach over and grab the bottom and climb in. So I then added strips of Nixalite all around the upper dome (I was running low on the stuff, so I had to conserve), but that just forced them to climb a little lower, until they were below the stuff around the edge, and then reach over and climb in.
So I took the vertical strip and another little piece of Nixalite and attached them part way around the bottom part of the feeder:
This seemed to have worked for a couple of weeks, but then they figured out how to get in -- so I bought a Yankee Flipper Squirrel Proof Bird Feeder from Droll Yankees Inc., which works perfectly.
I declared VICTORY, took down all of the Nixalite (for which I've found plenty of other uses!), and have ever since enjoyed the ocassions when one of the squirrels have jumped on and been spun off -- but it's so infrequent that I've made no effort to get a picture
