My feeder has become really active since early Sept; nothing unusual but lots of sparrows, red breasted nuthatches, goldfinches, chickadees, one pair of cardinals (rattiest male I've ever seen, more gray than red, is he molting?), one very noisy blue jay, downy woodpeckers (cute except when they're hammering away on my door frames!), lots of robins and last but not least BFG (BFG is big furry guy, my resident feeder robbing smart a@@ squirrel). So I found an old bottle of vaseline, greased the feeder pole (an old hockey stick) and waited like an idiot (my wife says it comes naturally!) by the window for twenty minutes to shoot an HD video with her new camera. Boy, am I po'd; big furry guy finally shows up, circles the feeder for about 5 minutes eating seeds from the ground, looks up a few times but NOT ONCE does he try to climb the pole before wandering off into the bush!! I can't believe it, can squirrels sense vaseline?? - I guess this one can!.
All the while of course my neurotic chickadees are grabbing seeds from the feeder and disappearing into the shrubbery. They're neurotic 'cause I wait until they leave then I go retrieve all the seeds they've hidden and put them back into the feeder. Ok, just kidding but I've always wanted to try it - guess my wife is right!