This is Steve’s first attempt at putting a baffle on the TPost where we connected the bird photo booth after his first adjustment. We need to have it close enough to the platform feeder so we can get good close up shots. Yet, we have to make sure that squirrels cannot get up there. We had a dome from a feeder we no longer use and my husband had the idea to make that into baffle. We had a bet. I said that I thought squirrels could get around it, but he was confident they would not be able to breach it.
For almost 48 hours it looked like my husband was winning. I had conceded defeat in fact on Saturday night. However, Sunday morning, the feeder cam captured an unwelcome visitor on the platform feeder!
So, he moved the dome a notch higher on the T-Post in the position you see it in in the photo above. We didn’t actually see how the squirrel got around the baffle.
We were able then to see how they were beating the baffle. They were climbing up the 4×4 post as high as they could and then jumping to the T-Post above the baffle and they were then up on the platform.
Steve decided to move the baffle to the very top of the T-Post, pound it in as far as possible while keeping a good line of site to the platform. He also used an old piece of downspout we had around here to encase the T-Post and prevent squirrel climbing. The crimped the downspout securely on each end to prevent it from becoming a wasp nest zone. He also removed our old platform and the sheet metal flashing we’d installed below it and added a piece of wood to make a larger overall platform. It’s been out 3 days and a number of squirrels have tested it, but so far, none have made it onto the platform! Here’s our final squirrel proof design for a platform feeder cam.
Bonus is that the whole setup looks much neater & cleaner in the yard!
And, what’s a bird watcher post without any bird pics? Here’s some of our photos from the new larger platform. We even got a Mourning Dove to land up here and hang out a while!
Now, that we’ve mastered squirrel proofing the T-Post in this setup, we are going to try to take what we’ve learned and setup a Suet Cam to try to catch some good closeups of Pileated woodpecker in his favorite location. We plan to use a similar setup for our hummingbird feeder and oriole feeder in coming weeks as well. We want to setup a few different locations where we can move the camera on different days. We’ve ordered some more of the trail cam brackets designed for T-Posts and also got quick clip attachments to make moving it a breeze.
Helpful Products for Setting Up Bird Photo Booth
When I purchased the Bird Photo Booth 2.0 in March of 2021, I also purchased the tripod and battery pack from the direct website where the photo booth is sold. It turned out that those were just marked up and shipped directly from Amazon. The tripod listed here is the exact one being sold by Bird Photo Booth. I could not find that exact battery pack any longer on Amazon. I have this Anker one listed and while it is slightly larger, I still fit it into the booth and I can set it up at night and leave it in overnight and throughout the next day without any issues. The Perky Pet Hummer Bar here is the same one as on the bird photo booth site.
You do not have to click these links to purchase, but if you do, please be aware that these are affiliate links and if you make a purchase after clicking through, a small portion of your sale goes to help fund this website. You will be getting a better deal on these accessories than if you buy them at bird photo booth website. The other items are all items we have used in our setup here to attach the camera to our T-Posts protect them from squirrels. You will need a micro SD card to effectively use the Bird Photo Booth.
