Yellow-rumped Warbler

Suet provides high energy fat that can attract insect-eating birds to your yard or office, such as Yellow-rumped Warblers, Pine Warblers and Northern Mockingbirds to your feeding station along with such regular visitors as woodpeckers and nuthatches. During colder months, suet calories can help birds survive low temperatures, but squirrels may also develop a taste for suet and they can dominate the suet cakes at your feeding station.

Some people welcome squirrels, and that’s great. Others find squirrels create problems at their feeders; and some backyard birders create all-out wars against squirrels. So what can you do to keep the squirrels away? Somehow, someone discovered that adding red pepper to suet cakes makes suet less interesting to mammals.

Simply by switching to suet brands that include red pepper, you can deter squirrels, and raccoons, and ensure that birds get their fair share. It’s been a perfect answer to my squirrel and raccoon concerns. Two popular varieties of no-melt hot pepper suet are featured at https://www.wbu.com/products/suet/hot-pepper-no-melt-suet/ and https://www.wildbirdsuets.com/hotpepperdelight/.

Suet can be a year-round staple at your feeding station if you use no-melt suet cakes during hot summer temperatures. No-melt suet cakes with hot pepper will give your birds an energy boost and enhance your backyard birding.

Article by Peter Stangel

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