A Deer Feeder?

I may know why the deer was so obliging the other morning when I stopped to take its picture.  It appears we may have been unknowingly feeding it for several weeks.

We got a new bird feeder a few weeks back, and the seeds have been disappearing but we’ve never actually seen any birds around it.

We stopped our TV viewing tonight to watch as a deer wandered across the front lawn, but imagine our surprise when we realized the deer had stopped to feed, not on the hosta garden which regularly gets a few nibbles but at the bird feeder! The feeder might be squirrel-proof, but apparently it’s not deer-proof. 

There was a lot of laughter as we imagined what my Grandma would have said.  As much as she loved animals of all sorts, she used to get really annoyed by the squirrels when they would eat from her bird feeder.  They’d scare away the birds she loved to watch, but more importantly, they'd dig up her tulip bulbs and eat them, or plant them in the middle of the grass in the neighbour’s yard. While I don’t think Grandma would have gone with the method a fellow blogger with a similar dislike for squirrels chose, she might have if she found the product. She did happily have Grandpa set up a squirrel relocation program more than once with squirrels moved to more forest-like locations she was sure they would like better than her yard.  I used to tease her all the time about the poor, displaced squirrels who must be missing their families.  Somewhere I have a postcard that I sent her from university with a photo of a grey squirrel and a story about his missing family.

Grandma had no patience with squirrels at her bird feeder, but I think she’d have made an exception for a deer … as long as they didn’t start snacking on her garden. Good thing Grandpa didn’t have to figure out how to relocate a deer.