interesting sandy. i knew the vit k treatment but i didn't realize it was heparin! which leads me to my mystery, though i never would use poison bait. it is all this talk of rats and mice. someone is trying to move into my romeo's sleeping box in the shed. but my reason for posting is quite hilarious- he went to investigate why my 15 some pound bag of composted manure was moving. i am standing at the back door and hear "SQUEEK!" i wish i saw it, but alas i had only my tshirt and undies on and it was still daylight. hey, i work midnights, ok? :) i had a mental picture of it jumping in the air and squeaking at the same time. the big oaf ran out of the shed, belly to the ground, and wanted back in the house. that surprised me. my old man at romeo's age would have had his whiskers twitching in anticipation. so, my mystery continues....though maybe in the process we have discouraged our visitor. i also took the top off his sleeping box to make it less inviting. i have found no rear projectiles. i am also considering leaving the feeders empty for awhile. i would hate to do that. just sharing a story. i didn't want to start a thread just for it. it almost applies.

When my wife broke her leg years ago, and was mostly confined to an upstairs bedroom, I hung a large tube feeder from a pulley on a bracket over the upstairs window: Click for more pics I used the pulley system to raise and lower the feeder from below for refilling. But there was no problem with the birds finding and using it. They would sometimes wait on the edge of the roof for their 'turn' to use it. There are many feeders made for windows, and I've heard of them entertaining cats. Somebody even had a system where the birds could come in 'out of the weather' to an enclosed feeding area just inside the window.

American Goldfinh in winter plumage. BN

Let's close this thread. It dates back to early 2015 and is way too long and it confuses people when they see two Birds and other mobile features... threads going at the same time. There's a later thread, Birds and other mobile features in the garden 2015 #11, that's current and will continue until it gets too long and the 2016 threads start. In general, I have no problem if people want to continue a discussion on an earlier thread with relevant comment, but newer posts are better put in context with newer threads (that sounds a little convoluted but I hope it makes sense). Claire