Throughout every season, our yard is filled with wild birds. We enjoy feeding a variety of birds at various seed and suet feeders scattered around the front and back yards. Two of our family’s favorite birds to watch are the Red Breasted Grosbeak and the Goldfinch, both species are common and plentiful in our area. Recently, we received a beautiful new bird feeder for review, the Squirrel Buster Plus Wild Bird Feeder from Brome Bird Care. While we seldom have squirrels bother our bird feeders, we do have a large amount of an annoying bird called the Common Grackle. We find them to be loud, messy and I do not like the fact that they often chase the smaller birds away from the feeders.
The Squirrel Buster Plus is not only the perfect way to keep squirrels from stealing bird seed, this feeder can also be adjusted to keep larger birds, like the Grackles, from being able to get to the seed!
I had no problem assembling the Squirrel Buster. The instructions were very clear and all of the parts and pieces of the feeder are very well made. I like that the large tube is plastic and not glass, this means it will last longer since I always break my glass feeders!
The feeder has several options for perches. The adjustable perches can be left as is to attract small birds such as Chickadees and Goldfinch, or you can extend the perches by twisting to attract larger birds such as Grosbeaks and Woodpeckers. If you’d like to attract birds that prefer a larger perch, the included Cardinal Ring System can be added to the existing perches.
This ring is added by unscrewing the wing nut on the bottom of the feeder and then extending the perches as far as they can go into the ports on the Cardinal Ring System. I think it’s great that we now have the ability to decide which types of birds to attract to our feeder. For now, we are using the Cardinal Ring System option to attract a wider variety.
Once we assembled the perch, we filled our Squirrel Buster Plus with sunflower seeds that I bought at the feed mill. I was really surprised by just how much seed the feeder holds — up to 3 quarts. That’s a lot of bird seed! This is great because I won’t have to fill the feeder as often, especially in the winter when they seem to inhale it as soon as we put it out for them!
The closing mechanism is in the center of the tube, to adjust it you just rotate the clear center tube clockwise to increase the allowed weight, or counter clockwise to decrease the allowed weight.
When a large bird, or furry animal, tries to get the seed, the weight will cause the bottom part of the feeder to lower and cover the seed ports. They won’t be injured at all and as soon as they get off of the perches, the seed ports will open again.
Besides being easy to assemble, the Squirrel Buster Plus is also easy to keep clean since you can disassemble the entire feeder to hand wash, or place it in the dishwasher for a thorough cleaning!
This feeder also claims to keep wild bird seed fresh for longer. The feeder has a Seed Ventilation System which means that instead of trapping condensation like many tube feeders, this one allows the warm air to escape through the patent pending water proof vents underneath the feeder lid. This should help cut back on losing expensive bird seed to mold caused by dampness!
And guess what? The birds sure seem to like it! Not long after hanging our feeder, two curious Goldfinch stopped by for a snack!
I had to laugh at this video from the Brome Bird Care website. I almost wish that our yard was overrun with squirrels so we could watch all these funny antics for ourselves!
How innovative! The goldfinches approve.
That is cool! I need a bird feeder but had worried it would be taken down by squirrels here or what not! Have to look into this!
When we owned our last house, we had multiple bird feeders in our yard. The squirrels that were also living in our yard tore up so many feeders! I hope that when we move to our new house in November that we can get some bird feeders. I miss being able to watch them.
I dont mind feeding the squirrels..i love watching all the wildlife..that is just me though.
trisha
I have one that the port holes close, but when a squirrels get on it seeds fall out of the bottom, then he goes and eats them off the ground,, so I ducked taped the bottom and put small holes so water and air can get in and out. Now seeds wont fall out and I save on seeds and the birds are happy again. Thank-you.