I came home today to my new Kitchen Patio garden and looked out hoping to find some birds on the feeder only to find our resident chipmunks chowing down on the new bird seed I just put in. Now don’t get me wrong, these guys are cute and relatively harmless. However I put up the bird feeder for the birds after all. I mean, if they just had a few for lunch or dinner that would be fine. But no, instead within a couple days they will completely empty out the feeder, and bury the seed all over my garden. Next thing you know, I’m weeding clumps of sunflower sprouts.

So I decided to create a baffle to stop them from climbing the pole to the feeder. All I used was a 14 inch black plastic food tray (you know, the kind you get fruit or treats in from the grocery store) and a hose clamp. I tightened the hose clamp around the pole part way up — high enough that they could not jump above the baffle from any of the surrounding areas. Then I cut a slit to the middle of the plate, cut a small circle out at the centre and wrapped the plate around the pole just above the clamp. Tape the opening and there you have it, a cheap home made bird feeder baffle.

I will admit we had great fun watching the two chipmunks try and defeat the barrier. They are very persistent, we watched them splash in the bird bath quite a few times. I think however I managed to baffle them!