Jeanie,

My best guess is that it is a raccoon. Raccoons are smart, agile and can get over, under, through or around almost any barrier errected to stop them. They also have a voracious appetite (more about that in a minute) and love hummingbird nectar.

As our house, a raccoon takes down the one feeder I have in a tree that it can easily access, unscrews the nectar reservoir/jar from the feeding platform and drains the entire jar dry. I know it is a raccoon because he or she is leaving footprints everywhere, and sometimes if I go outside at the right time (usually between 9 and 10 p.m. here) I can find the raccoon in the yard and chase it off.

I think a possum would be capable of doing the same thing, but am not seeing possum tracks or possums in the yard here lately.

The raccoons and I wage war over my sweet corn crop every year. Some years they get every bit of it because they will 'harvest' it and eat it when it is still 4 or 5 days away from being ripe enough for me to harvest it. Occasionally I harvest most or all of it before they show up.

One year, the brother of one our neighbors was fed up with having a raccoon get all his corn. I think he had four long rows....and I think the rows were 100' long. When the raccoons started pulling ears before they were ripe, he put out the raccoon trap and started trapping raccoons. (Presumably to take down to the river somewhere for release, or possibly he shot them. I didn't ask because I didn't want to know.) Eighteen nights passed. Eighteen raccoons were trapped and removed. How much corn did he get that year? Not one single ear.

We have trapped raccoons and relocated them to a remote area along the river where they presumably wouldn't find any gardens to raid. We put canned cat food in those little rectangular plastic containers that hold the stick form of Crisco. Every time we have done that, the raccoon eats all the cat food AND the clear plastic container we had used to hold the canned cat food.

I have resorted to taking down that feeder from that tree after dark and bringing it inside because I am tired of refilling it daily this early in the season.

Your best bet is to move the feeder somewhere else. If the coon (or whatever it is) has figured out how to climb that pole, which I think is likely, then it will be a constant problem. I've moved most of my feeders from trees and now hang them from hooks attached to the porch roof. They are the kind of hooks you'd use to hang hanging baskets, and since the raccoon cannot fly up there and raid them, those feeders aren't bothered. However, I have had possums climb the porch posts trying to reach them. They are unsuccesful though because the hooks are placed some distance from the porch posts.

Like you, I was a city slicker when I moved here and had limited experience with wildlife. I'm a lot more experienced now, and even though I like living surrounded by wildlife, they do create a lot of problems.

Dawn

Dawn,
thanks for the response. Guess, since my "masked bandit" is so wiley, I will just bring the feeders in at night. It is a "pain" to have to make new necter every day or so. Besides, it confuses the hummers when their empty feeder is not hanging where it is supposed to be.
What do you want to bet, it's the same little guy or gal who managed to drag trash out of the split trash can lid. They certainly come by their "handle" honestly!

Jeanie

Jeanie, I have very large dog that likes to mess up my garden, trash cans, and anything else he can get into. He will soon be taking a crash course in electricity.

Larry

Larry,
of all the "critters" who have crossed my path out here, the raccoons have given me the most trouble. I don't know how to deal with them, since they are night raiders. I even had a half-grown one isolate me in my house one night last Summer, because he positioned himself on my deck railing by the door and every time I tried to open the door hoisted his back, hissed and growled at me, somewhat like a cat. I would have shooed him off with a broom, but he looked sick and was drooling. Since he seemed to be in attack mode, and since I suspected he might be rabid, I did not challenge him. I would have called the police the next AM, if he was still there, but he disappeared and never came back. I felt sorry for him, but I'm not taking any chances with rabid animals or snakes. If something SHOULD bite me, I would have to drive myself to the ER about eight miles away.
Like Dawn and so many others on our web, I love animals and nature, but sometimes there is some risk involved.

Jeanie

Jeanie, a town about 9 miles from me was quarantined a month or 2 ago because of rabies. I am not sure what all that entailed but the police shot all skunks on sight.

I do most of my critter control with electricity, but you have to be very careful. It is very easy to kill birds and small animals, also fires can be started with an electric fence. The next system I build will have a motion and a light sensor on it, and will be insulated differently than the ones I have used in the past.

Larry

You don't have to be a city slicker for racoon problems.
I lived in the middle of San Francisco and was awakened by a noise I assumed was one of the cats knocking something over. There standing in my one room apartment bathed in the blue glow of the tv were two racoons about ten feet away. I yelled and threw a shoe at them. They did'nt look impressed but left via the window anyway. True story.

Larry,
I can't say that I agree with just randomly killing animals "just in case". My property isn't fenced, so elecrifying a fence is not a possibility. I guess the only thing I can do with 'coons is remove temptation. I don't know what their normal diet is, but surely by now, there is enough vegetation, grubs, etc. to satisfy their appetites!

Jeanie

Hi, Punkinhead
What a great story! Did the 'coons come in the same window through which they escaped? Wasn't there a screen? Maybe, their fav. movie was on TV! Tee Hee. I'm teasing, because 'coons are pretty large animals, and that would have frightened me, too. Thankfully, they did not mess up your apt.

Jeanie

Yes they left through the same window. In SF because it much cooler most windows do not have screens because there far fewer bugs. They might have just looked around and thought,"Just looks like a bunch of hippy crap, let's split."

LOL, Punkinhead. Wishing GW had a "like" button.

L. O. L. Are you saying these were more "traditional" 'coons?
Back in the early 70's, went on vacation to the West coast, traveling HW 101, stopping and doing all the typical tourist stuff. This was in July. OK, we're Okies, right? July means HOT! I remember we had to pay for water in Arizona, which blew me away. It was so hot that soft drinks were not quenching our thirst, so we wanted water. Well, we got to California in our shorts and halters, went to the beach and nearly froze to death. I'm sure we stuck out like sore thumbs among all the bathing suits, because we had to put sweaters on over our summery clothing to be comfortable. I knew it got cold on the desert at night because my Sis lived in Hobbs, NM and when I would visit her, the sun baked your brains during the day, but you had to wear a sweater or jacket at night, but we were at the beach in broad daylight in JULY. No wonder the bugs move to Oklahoma and Texas. HA. It is beautiful out there, but those people live at a much faster pace than we do.

Jeanie