>>Now that I think of it, Harold had a momentary switch mounted by the
>kitchen
>>window to selectively zap the squirrels and not birds.
>
>>John Hermanson
>
>A couple of years ago my wife bought me an electric birdfeeder. It runs on
>batteries, batteries, batteries. But let's don't go there again. The
>instructions said that it would zap squirrels, which it did, but wouldn't
>bother birds because birds' feet and feathers are non-conductive, like
>plastic and rubber and all sorts of other substances that may seem to defy
>some people's understanding of the laws of physics.
>
>That's all I know about that subject. It works, and watching the vermin
>leap off is great fun. But when the batteries run down, if they're not
>replaced quickly, the evil creatures figure it out quick and come right
>back and chow down.
>
>Walt Wayman
I suspect that this is because birds land on the feeder with both feet
while squirrels (or possums in my case) would only put their forepaws on it
and so would be grounded. This is why birds can perch cheerfully on high
tension lines quite happily but possums who climb the pylon and then reach
across to grab the line hit the ground pre-cooked and cause outages.
Possums that jump on to the lines have no problem.
Andrew
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