The squirrel war!

As I enjoy my garden birds at home, I recently bought a ‘bird feeding tree’ from an outlet at £15 including 4 feeders (fat balls, seeds, suet block & peanuts) a water bowl and an extra hanger for whatever! Great value and the quality of it is very good. So, I now have a lightweight feeder that I can take to different parts of the country to attract the local species. However, The one thing that I hadn’t encountered at home on my feeders were squirrels! I am at a wooded site in Wales at the moment and virtually as soon as I had placed the new feeder in position and loaded it with all the goodies - along came Nutkin! Absolutely no problem for these athletes of the animal kingdom. The pole was greased and that seemed to keep them from climbing. Then one got up to the feeders- probably because the grease has dried and become less slippery. So, a plastic bottle was introduced to the shaft and that was greased. Again, it worked for a while but then , watching the activities early one morning I saw one breach even this defence. OK I thought, you want to play hard ball, I’ll get another smooth bottle on the shaft and grease that which I did. Again it was keeping them off until they had tried so much they had removed the grease and again they breached even these defences. I dislike the grey squirrel intensely as I was in Pest Control fo 30 years and know what damage this non indigenous species can cause to both property and wildlife. The war continues- I will win it but my defences have to be lightweight to be carried in the van. So the air rifle is out- only joking!!  Certainly they haven’t stolen a duet block again!!