DH bought me a squirrel proof feeder for Christmas called the Yankee flipper. It has a battery inside and when a squirrel puts his weight on the feeding perch it spins around. It's been a riot to watch. The longer the squirrel hangs on the faster it will spin until he's flipped off. The little guys don't know what to make of it! They sure have learned quick not to bother with that feeder and go elsewhere. The link is the feeder and has some pictures of a squirrel taking a ride. http://www.birdsforever.com/flipper.html
Squirrel proof feeder
ROTF! I would *love* to get one of these! We we told that some cayanne pepper powder mixed in with the birdseed deters squirrels. Apparantly birds cannot taste it and it doesn't bother them, but the squirrels take a few nibbles and find it's not their cup of tea! So far, we're just putting up with them. The starlings and grackles are worse pigs than the squirrels ever are, anyway! We fed our birds safflower seeds, but didn't have nearly as many diners as when we use black oil sunflower seeds (which the nuisance birds like, too). Guess we'll take the good with the bad!
My neighbor and I saw a program on PBS awhile back that involved a squirl maze, we have been looking for plans for one, does anybody have any info on this? Also you should see how frustrated they get when you cover a sunflower head with an old pantyhose leg, I did this because my husband loves to eat sunflower seeds, but the squirls & birds kept eating them. I put a squirl feeder in the oak in the front yard so now they don't seem to bother the bird feeders as much any more, I guess they prefer peanuts (unsalted) My Maine Coon cat swishes her tail like a squirl, it is the funniest thing I've ever seen a cat do, she also tries to groom it like they do thiers and usually ends up rolling over backwards. I found her when she was 10 days old in a box at Wal-Mart, in the cart corral, she was the only kitten in the box alive, I didn't have another cat, so she never learned regular cat behavior, the first summer of her life she spent in the window watching the squirls, with me.