Sparky is for the Birds!

In between letting you know where we are and what we are doing, Sparky decided to get her bird pole shepard's hook out after seeing a wide variety of birds at our Diamond Caverns campground. She went and bought a niger seed sock feeder, a big seed ball in the shape of a bell, and a metal cage feeder that holds round peanut butter or similar balls. You just drop the balls in the feeder. The jury is still out whether the birds like the commercial peanut butter ball ones (Sparky got all this at Walmart), but it was a start, and it didn't take long for the birds to decide they like the offerings, at least a few of them. We've got goldfinches visiting, and a tufted titmouse or two.

And of course, the squirrels did, too...ugh...There's no baffle on the Shepard's hook pole, so no wonder the squirrels can get the seed bell which was their favorite, very easily. They proceeded to hit the seed bell hard, so Sparky decided to take it down for a bit, and placed it in a zip loc, (freezer thickness) bag and put it in the storage bay. RVers know where this is going, right? 

After the forecast said a LOT of rain was coming, Sparky decided it was a good thing to have taken the seed ball bell down for a couple of days and forgot about it. The sun came back out on the third day, so Sparky opened up the bay to get the seed ball out and......

MICE had gotten into the bay and chewed a hole through the freezer thickness zip loc bag, then decimated the seed bell, scattering seed shells from one side of the bay to the other, making a big mess and leaving little micey droppings everywhere they went in the bay. Now this is a VERY bad thing for an RVer  Mice like to chew, and being rodents, they are known for getting into the wiring of RV's, trucks, etc. and chewing their way through wires causing beaucoup dollars in damage if you don't spot them fast enough or have some kind of deterrent in your bays.

We quickly got rid of the seed bell, and actually placed it back on the bird pole, vacuumed out the bay, and then deposited wrapper less bars of Irish Spring soap in the bay. Irish Spring soap is a popular rodent/varmint/critter deterrent--they supposedly hate the smell and RVers swear by it. Who knew?!  So we shall see if that did the trick. No idea where they came in, but there are quite a few places mice can find, RV's are not the tightest when it comes to construction.....

The next day, the seed ball bell disappeared off the pole. It's completely gone, hanging string and all. We are not sure how that happened, there's no evidence the ball was ever hanging there! 

Sparky is going to have to rethink her strategy for storing bird seed, that's for sure! Maybe a metal tin canister with an airtight lid. The last thing we need is more varmints/critters/insects coming along for the ride! We've already had a stink bug infestation, a lady bug infestation, and now, a visit from a mouse or two. We don't need no stinkin' mice!

See you on the road again in a couple of days....