Supa Caged Seed Feeder

A cage around a feeder is a size filter, and what it filters out is not only squirrels. Pigeons and collared doves will empty a seed feeder between breakfast and lunch, and they do it in a way that leaves nothing at all for the finches and tits the feeder went up for in the first place.

Supa's answer is a robust powder coated steel frame around a seed feeder, and the frame does two jobs at once: it is a physical barrier to a squirrel, and its gaps are small enough that a pigeon or a dove cannot get through. Supa make a second point that is easy to overlook - a cage gives smaller birds a sense of security while they feed, which counts for something in a garden that a sparrowhawk visits. Filling is through a flip top lid. Approximate dimensions are 26cm high by 17cm wide by 17cm deep, plus the handle.

• 26cm (H) x 17cm (W) x 17cm (D), plus handle
• Robust powder coated steel frame
• Filled through a flip top lid
• Excludes squirrels, and larger birds such as pigeons and doves
• Not suitable for the feeding of peanuts
• Single feeder

Supa print a warning on this one and it deserves reading: it is not for peanuts. This is a seed feeder. A whole peanut in a feeder that lets one out entire is a genuine hazard to a chick being fed by a parent bird, which is why peanuts belong in a mesh feeder made for them. Supa are also refreshingly honest that a cage is not the last word on squirrels - their own advice is to hang it where a squirrel cannot jump across from a tree or a feeding station, to use a tree hook so the drop from the hanging point is longer, and, failing everything, to put a squirrel feeder out and let them have their own. No seed capacity has been supplied to us, so how often it needs filling is anybody's guess.

Who it's for: gardens where the seed keeps disappearing and the small birds never seem to get any, whether the culprit has four legs or is a wood pigeon. Not the feeder to buy if peanuts are what you wanted to put out.