Defeat Squirrels!
Grey Squirrels are intelligent, entertaining, lovable even ....and an absolute nuisance! Anything they can't eat there-and-then they bury, anything they can't bury they destroy! A slight exaggeration perhaps, but they do tend monopolise the feeders to the exclusion of the birds and you can find yourself feeding squirrels and not much else.
The thing pictured here may look like a ricketty heap of wood, but it is, in fact, a SQUIRREL PROOF BIRD-TABLE. The table itself consists of five sides of a wooden cube (i.e the bottom of the cube is missing). Squirrels climb up the bird table upright then find the side pieces barring their way to the top. The troughs around the sides (halved plastic tubing) are both squirrel AND Pigeon proof and are filled with seed.
"Hmmm...simple but brilliant!" You're probably thinking (especially "Hmmm").
This is actually the only thing which has succeeded in deterring all known squirrels. The feeder surrounded by a cage is quite good but anorexic squirrels can get in and some birds are put off by the grill. The "geasy-pole" method has had some success - this is a nut feeder at the top of a metal pole to which oil has been applied. Watching squirrels take a running jump at the pole only to slide slowly down is certainly entertaining, but hardly what you'd call Enviromentally Friendly.
Robin Taming
You sometimes read things like "Robins will sell their soul for mealworms." Actually the Robin in the photo was tamed using sausage meat. I did a Robin consumer test and discovered that sausage was preferred to everything else (although I didn't go down the mealworm route).
The secret is to place pieces of food far enough away for the Robin to feel comfortable about coming for them while you're sitting in the garden. The sausage meat should be placed on something conspicuous like a coloured plastic top. The Robins should learn to associate it with food and when it's done this you can start to move it nearer and nearer. With luck and patience it should be possible to move the top onto a chair next to where you're sitting, then your knee, then your hand and finally you can dispense with the top.
To have a Robin coming onto your hand is a delightful experience, but remember: while you're regarding it as your tame Robin it's probably thinking of you as its tame human!
PLEASE NOTE This should not be attempted if you have a cat problem, the Robin could become less wary and end up as cat food!
"Birds in a Cheshire Garden"