Last night the local bear, yes I said bear, we do indeed live in the woods, made quite a mess here. He must have awoken from his winter slumber hungry as all get out. He trashed our birdfeeder yet again, and this time he truly thoroughly totaled it, pole and all. No amount of JB Weld is going to put this mess back together. So I now have to rebuild from the ground up. We had a tall fence post that my dad made to look like one of JRR Tolkien's Ents with feeders hanging from the stick arms. It was pretty cool and lasted us nearly a decade, but now that I have to start over, I want a new look. Something more refined and industrial and maybe a bit asian-ish. I would like to ask my fellow DA's for some design help. For the pole, I'll need 8-10' in height with 1-2 arms to hang feeders from.
As for feeders, anyone seen anything cool? Don't tell me about the Egg feeders, they're cute and all but entirely too puny for our thriving avian populace, I'd be filling it daily.
Design help needed! Thanks
A bear who eats like a bird?
Now that's an odd one. 🙂
Perhaps you need a bear feeder, too. I'm not totally joking here. With a bear, you can either have nothing and expect him randomly to come checking on what you don't want worked over. Or shoot him, which is not considered decent these days. Or accomodate him. Perhaps if he had something designed to allow him to dine on something more appealing than bird feed, he might become a more symbiotic fellow. I've always heard you want bears as far away as possible, because they can turn on you, but I've never read any science on this. Perhaps some investigation with a zoologist/naturalist might be revealing. Design this furry guy a solution that will kind of mellow him out. Just a thought.
Thank you Koen
I have been looking at the "countryside"on the web and i realise that this sort of life is quite common!.I realised there were farmers and fishermen etc. but i see there is a lot more to it than grass and twigs now.I think i will stay in the city though.What is a Raccoon?is that the one that lives up trees?,is it the stripey one?,bears can eat people though?
Racoons and coyotes and bears...Oh My!
Heavens!! I had no idea that someone could actually have an in-built dislike of nature, how sad! My home has a 48'Lx5'H expanse of glass that looks directly out into a woodland nature preserve. I can't even see another house from my house, yet I am only 50 miles or so from Boston. Besides songbirds, we regularly see, raccoons (yes, the stripey guys), skunks, porcupines, fisher cats, minks, fox, coyotes, deer, beaver, herons, turkeys, quail, hawks, owls and occasionally black bear and bald eagles. (Oh yeah and snakes, lots of snakes, I could do without those, thank you). One year we had a porcupine that enjoyed munching the wood posts of our deck, my husband had to beat him off with a broom, the stupid thing liked the taste of pressure treated lumber. Another year we had 5 coyote puppies running around in our driveway. (Damn, they were cute, I've got pix if you're curious) We also have a pond on our property that has fish and frogs. One of our neighbors has a real farm and we get eggs and organic fruit & veggies right from the grower. Yet, I can get to the symphony, museums, shopping, dining or the theatre in about an hour...life couldn't be better! You should try it some time.
But, PLEASE, doesn't anyone have any clever ideas for a bird feeding station? I was wondering about a steel or aluminum post of some type that might discourage my gluttonous and freakishly clever squirrels.
The dining habits of bears
Oh and vivienne, bears are omnivorous, which means they eat both plants and meat, but mostly they like plants, nuts and bugs. They are big fans of birdseed, they must like the nutty crunch! The black bears are relatively small (200-300 lbs or so) and find humans to a bit big as a menu item.
Hi Olive...
Back to the birth feeder. Last year I made one that was like a large plate with a cylinder in the middle that fitted a standard 2"6/16 steel fence pole. On top of it a kind of reversed "Venturi" cooling tower shape with the narrow end about 1"1/2 from the plate. This reservoir could hold about a two weeks worth of sunflower seeds (in our garden) I made a cover on top to protect the content. It worked very well and being placed on a 12' pole (4' in the ground) nobody could reach it. Unfortunately it does not exist anymore because during the construction of our new workshop and offices one of the heavy machine operators backed his equipment into it. I will have to make a new one so if you are interested, please let me know! Oh, the material is the same unglazed, vitrified stoneware you have on the handle of (Stefan's) pestle.If you want to see it before accepting my offer, I can probably find a picture of the old one somewhere..
very sorry
to seem so "Townie" but i just prefer city life,i have a top floor apartment with massive windows which overlook the city and im quite happy with that,im not a nature hater but i just dont know anything of it!. My neighbour has a Range Rover and her mother has Labradors?.I dont have a co-op either im afraid just a sainsburys. I will try and learn more of the "countryside",are the people there friendly?. Good luck with your birdfeeder,see!! i didnt know people had to feed birds! i thought they ate worms!!.
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