Confirmed
If I forget to bring the big feeder in at night, it will be totally empty in the morning, no matter how full it was. This is annoying. In the past, raccoons have gone after this feeder, or its predecessors, but they always tore it down and took it apart on the ground (hence predecessors). This one stays hanging where it belongs, but gets emptied just the same. It is a tube with feeding stations, covered by a birdcage-like grille whose opening are barely large enough to let titmice enter.
Last night I went out to get the feeder, but the chickadees were still dining, so I went back inside and then forgot about it. At ten, which is like 2 am to me, I realized my error. I turned on the outside light so I wouldn't fall down the damn steps and voila--two big fat raccoons, one of them clinging to the pole and delicately lifting out a few seeds at a time, while the buddy watched from the ground. These were massive raccoons. I opened the door and said, "Aw, c'mon, fellows" figuring they'd scurry. But either because their cool would not allow them to run away, or because they were too damn fat to run, they calmly waddled off into the night, and I brought my feeder in.
= new reply since forum marked as read
So I bought a squirrel proof feeder just like this one:
The idea is that the weight of the squirrel would close the top over the feeding ports and the squirrels couldn't eat anything. Yeah, every morning the feeder was still empty. I couldn't figure out how the squirrels were getting into it - and the raccoons couldn't get to it at all the way it was hung from a tree limb.
One early morning I looked out to check the feeder and saw what was going on. A deer was standing at the feeder delicately licking bird seed out of the ports. Since it wasn't putting any weight on the bar, the top wasn't closing. I gave up on that feeder since it was a nuisance to fill and a pain to re-hang.
We have three old fence posts with plant hooks to hold bird feeders near the house - about five feet outside my library window. The deer will walk right up on the walkway next to the house and eat out of the feeders even when the windows are open. I've told them to scoot and they ignore me. Then I tried walking out on the front porch next to the walkway and yelling at them. They just stare at me, irritated that I interrupted their meals. I have to bring the feeders in every night to keep from feeding a small herd of deer and a pack of raccoons.
I had one, too, and also found it ineffective and inconvenient to fill. This is the closest picture I could find to the one I have now:
The last one of this type we had had larger openings in the grille, and squirrels could squeeze in. One winter day, a red-tailed hawk landed in the backyard. All the birds beat it (except for a downy female, who hid herself on the branch of a big old lilac); there was no one around *except* the squirrel who had squeezed himself into the feeder. Uh-oh. If he'd stayed where he was, he probably would have been all right, but before I knew it, he was wriggling his way out, and then--claret on the snow!
