While winter has the garden locked in its icy grip, it’s time to pursue other activities.

The property that surrounds our home (when we purchased it over 3 decades ago), has evolved from the yard that we started with into a garden. As the garden developed and matured over the ensuing years, it has become a home and refuge to countless others. Like many gardeners, we relish this opportunity to share our haven with most of the co-resident wildlife here. As the diversity of the plant life expanded within the variety of micro-habitats we created, so too did the variety and numbers of our fellow creatures.

No other group brings such animated life to our garden as do the birds. Getting them thru a Michigan winter requires assistance beyond creating this sheltered space. As a life-long feeder of wild birds, I’ve learned that the greatest variety of foods offered yields the greatest variety of birds. When the weather turns bitterly cold (as it is now), the preferred food choice for many of the birds is shelled peanuts.

For a couple of years now, I’ve been trying various styles of homemade feeders that I intended to be used solely by birds, however, resident squirrels have other ideas on the matter. It’s not that I mind the 3 or 4 different species of squirrels here, getting the sustenance they need in order to survive. I place peanuts on the platform feeders and onto the ground for their indulgence. But it’s been a battle of wills keeping certain furry individuals in their proper place.

What follows is an abbreviated instruction for assembling the latest (and for the past 2 weeks now) squirrel-baffling peanut feeder that I’m using. And it was crazy-inexpensive to make as well.

Supplies

• An empty plastic peanut butter jar w/lid
• A piece of 2” plastic pipe, (on my first try, using 1 1/2” pipe the saddle sat too low on the floor of the jar).
• Fine galvanized wire
• Fender washer 

• Tools
• Dremel tool w/ cutting and grinding heads
• Coarse file
• Hand-held propane torch
• Pliers
• Scrap piece of 1” copper pipe

A peanut butter jar and a scrap piece of 2” pipe.  From the length of the 2” pipe I cut off roughly a 5″ piece, however before I remove the piece I need, I first make 2 parallel cuts about .75” apart, running the length of the piece of pipe I’ll need (roughly 5”). Then make the perpendicular cut across the pipe to remove the 5″ piece. What you should have is a length of pipe with a 3/4”- 1” slot; remove the length of the pipe (the blank).

This blank, with repeated trial fittings and recutting, grinding, filing, will become the saddle that will sit, centered in the bottom of the plastic jar. Its purpose is to deflect the peanuts towards the feeding openings in the jar. Now the fun starts!

With the blank resting on the cut-out slot along the bottom, I’ll set the empty plastic jar in front of and centered with the side of the blank, so that when I bend down and am eye-level with the blank, I can look at the base of the jar, and see where on the blank I’ll need to mark the lines that will indicate the tapered inside walls of the jar. Then I set the jar, on top of and centered, on the blank so I can eye-ball and mark the top sides of the blank indicating where it will meet the inside of the jar. Next, I cut the blank along the lines and file it, then try a dry-fit of the blank inside the bottom of the jar. It never has fit the first time, so I eye-ball where further filing needs to be done. This process takes several tries until the fit is correct. I remove the ill-fitting blank, refile, try another fit, see what needs to be filed, remove and repeat until it fits. The finished saddle should sit centered in the bottom of the jar (without distorting the thin plastic walls of the jar).  

Next, remove the blank from the jar and set it on the work surface. Looking straight down on it, make an arching half-circle line on each side of the blank, so the top of each arch is in the midpoint (length-wise) and roughly 3/4” apart (see finished saddle). When the arching lines reach the mid-line of the blank, I continue the line straight down to the bottom of the blank.  Cut out the insides of the lines and file the blank smooth.

This is how the finished saddle should look. I laid it upside-down so that you can get a better look at the underside, I failed to take a profile image to show how the ends are tapered from top to bottom (my bad).

Above, this is how the finished saddle looks after its placed inside the jar.

With the finished saddle in place, I light the propane torch and heat up a scrap piece of 1” copper pipe (I used a 1” copper union), held with pliers. The heated copper union is then lined up with the center of the end of the saddle. My aim is to have to bottom of the opening that I am about to make be at least 1/2” above the floor of the jar. Once I’ve got the proper alignment, I push the hot copper pipe thru the plastic while thrusting the copper slightly back and forth, to make the feeding holes on each side of the feeder.

Here’s what it looks like when filled with peanuts.  Note the feeding hole is approx. 1/2” off the floor of the jar; this keeps enough peanuts in place (at the lip of the hole), and prevents the peanuts behind from tumbling out the holes.  Also, note the smaller hole beneath the feeding hole.  It’s made by heating up a piece of heavy wire and poking it thru on each side.  I’ll run a cut piece of wire thru both of these tiny holes, and thru the jar, extending out roughly 1.5” on each end.  This wire acts as a training perch until the birds figure out what’s what. Once they figure out how to reach their prize, I remove the wire so that larger birds can’t use it.  All of the smaller birds simply grasp the bottom lip edge of the feeding hole, grab a peanut, and go!

I drilled out a center hole thru the lid, run a length of fine galvanized wire thru the hole, and thru some washers, tie it to a nut and I’m done.  Oh, I also file down a raised line of plastic that borders the top side of the lid, to prevent it from being used as a possible toehold by determined squirrels.

Here’s a finished feeder, hung less than 12” outside my bedroom window where the previously, squirrel-vandalized, peanut feeder was hung.  The perching wire’s been removed as the birds have been using this feeder for two weeks now. Not a single squirrel has breached this feeder and not without repeated attempts!

Watching the parade of Chickadees, Titmice, Nut-hatches, smaller woodpeckers, and the like visit this feeder has added endless hours of enjoyment, especially during this Covid winter!

I hope you are enjoying your co-residents as well.

Jacques