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Janie, I love the jays, too. But they can eat the sunflower seeds or the peanuts IN the shell - They've got those strong beaks, they gotta use 'em for something!

Cathy, it's a plain metal slinky. You have to use the metal ones, not the plastic ones. We've been discussing this on the Cornell list, and some people have said their squirrels figured out how to get past the Slinky. I think mine might have, too. It's not a sure-fire thing, but it may work temporarily, and if you provide the squirrel with a feeder of its own, the slinky may make it inconvenient enough that the squirrel will tend to stick to its own feeder.

You have to somehow get the pole up the middle of the slinky. That's not hard if it's a plain post or shepherds hook. But if you can't just slip it over the pole, you have to snip the very end of the slinky where the little clip holds the 1st 2-3 rings together, then thread the slinky around the pole.

Once it's on the pole you can either fasten the top couple of spirals to the bottom of the feeder (staples), or fasten it to the top of the post somehow - in one case I used cable ties to fasten it to the two arms at the top of a double shepherd's hook. Then just let it hang.

Tim, how do you tell the male from the female? Is the male the one with the redder belly? I guess I could look it up, but until tomorrow I'm still on dial-up, so . . . not so much with unnecessary researching.

Before this year, I'd only see the Red-belly very occasionally, and he/she was soooooo skittish, I could only rarely get a peek, let alone a good picture. But this year I've been fortunate enough to get a PAIR of them frequenting that peanut feeder - sometimes both at once --- and they've become quite bold about it.



I bought one of those Backyard Bird Cams before they become obsolete - it's kind a of a quirky beast, and takes some really bizarre photos (some of which I'll post next week - after the high-speed install - I'm avoiding anything bandwidth intensive until then!) - but it also gets some good shots too. About one in a hundred is worth saving, but since I don't have to stand there and take the photos, just change out the memory card and battery every day or so, it's an interesting toy!