Those Little Squirrels!!!!!

My two oldest children are in 4th grade science this year which has them studying North American bird species.  As a year long school project, I joined Cornell Project Feeder Watch and the kids have been actively participating.  We hung out our two bird feeds and a suet cake and just waited for the birds.  It was great! The birds began to come to the feeders every day and we were learning so much about them.


But then......

The squirrels found our feeder as well.  I'm not interested in feeding the squirrels but the birds.  I've screamed at them, chased them away at lightning speed and thrown rocks at them.  I put my feeders on a super skinny pole that I didn't think that they could climb and yet they still made it up the pole. Then I greased the pole...surely that would work, but NO! It didn't even slow them down and they decided that they should invite their friends.  But today, they pulled out all of the stops. 


I looked outside and what did they do, but they chewed out the hook that the bird feeder was hanging on. The feeder dropped to the ground and they were eating all of the bird feed.


If anyone has any ideas for keeping the squirrels away successfully, I'm all ears.  I want to enjoy the birds and not have to keep chasing them away!