The Squirrel-Proof Bird Feeder
Hana builds a bird feeder, but a clever squirrel keeps eating all the seeds. Time to invent a better one.
Hana wanted to see birds in her garden. So she and Grandpa made a bird feeder out of an old milk carton. They cut a window, poked in a stick for a perch, and filled it with seeds.
They hung it on a branch and waited at the kitchen window.
The next morning, there was a visitor. But it was not a bird. It was a squirrel, upside down, with its head in the feeder and its fluffy tail waving in the air.
"Hey!" laughed Hana. "That's for the birds!"
By lunchtime, the seeds were all gone.
"Squirrels are amazing climbers and jumpers," said Grandpa. "If we want to feed the birds, we'll have to out-think a squirrel."
Hana got out her notebook. "Idea one," she wrote. "Hang the feeder from a long string." The squirrel slid down the string like a firefighter on a pole.
"Idea two," she wrote. "Put it on a pole." The squirrel climbed the pole in two seconds.
Hana thought hard. "What if we put something on the pole that the squirrel can't climb past?"
Grandpa helped her fix a wide plastic cone, like an upside-down umbrella, on the pole under the feeder. The squirrel climbed up, bumped its nose on the cone and slid back down. It tried again. Bump, slide.
Soon, sparrows and finches came to eat the seeds. Grandpa said bluebirds like fruit and mealworms more than seeds, so they added a little dish of raisins too.
And the squirrel? Hana put some nuts out for it, at the other end of the garden. "Everyone gets breakfast," she said, "but everyone gets their own."
⭐ The End ⭐
💬 Talk about it
- What did Hana make the first feeder from?
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An old milk carton. - What happened when the feeder hung on a string?
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The squirrel slid down the string. - What finally stopped the squirrel?
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A wide cone on the pole. - How did Hana make sure the squirrel was not left out?
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She put nuts out for it at the other end of the garden.
