My home is equipped with bird feeders: three, sometimes four, of them. Recently, they have been vanishing. We have feeder thieves.
Now, I am not talking about interlopers, such as squirrels, that merely steal the contents. I am talking about thieves that steal the whole feeder. I first encountered the problem of feeder thieves when a bear dragged the woodpecker feeder off about 40 metres and tore it open to get at the suet. The solution, which worked until recently, was to take bird feeders in at night, because thieves are usually nocturnal.
That procedure worked until yesterday, when the finch feeder was torn off the the tree and just vanished. The thieves returned again today during daylight hours.
Raccoon: “I can smell the seeds; they have put up yet another feeder, one that looks like it is catering to chickadees, nuthatches and sparrows.
“Come on, let’s grab it before those bipeds spot us.”
“OK, I tore it off the tree and tested the contents. They are good. Now let’s drag it home.”
“Why did you stop us? We are hungry.”
I had these bandits when living in Proctor. They kept getting the suet & my husband wired the slot shut so the suet could not be pulled out. Next day the whole cage with suet was gone.
yep, I had one of those gallon jugs full of peanuts. They tore it out of the holder and down to the ground and all the peanuts were gone next morning.
Yes you can tell they are thieves as they are wearing “masks”. Great photos and story line as usual.
I lament your lost feeders. But I can’t help loving the thieves. Great portraits!
I had a plastic 5 gallon paint pail out on the deck..lid snapped on tight..storing a opened bag of sunflower seeds…after a couple of days – I found it with claw marks around the lid, and it had been`gnawed on….I presumed it was racoons. I now keep my stock in a metal garbage can..in the closed door garage.
Cute photo and caption..”why…we are hungry..”
Allan