Birding Despite Disability

Not the expected kind of mammal. I have never seen them do this before; maybe they have been doing it at night?

Last year I tried to deal with the squirrels by first adding some cayenne pepper to the seed mix. It worked… for about ten minutes. The first mammal visitors took one sniff and scampered away angrily. But they came back and acquired a taste for it.

So I added more.

And they came back and ate it anyway.

Eventually our little arms race escalated to the point that I was dumping Tabasco sauce on the seeds. And they were still eating them.

That is when I finally gave up.

Don’t let anyone tell you that capsaicin will keep the little mammals out of your bird feeders.

Update: Today he was back and brought a friend.

I wonder what deer think of cayenne pepper…