Wildlife Christmas Tree

My wife suggested that this year we move the Christmas Tree from inside the house to the outside, I thought for a moment... "sure let's do that, we can make it a wildlife tree, with all kinds of good eats for the birds"

So come Sunday morning I was out bright and early, bought a tree, went food shopping for some goodies, came home and we both worked on the tree for most of the day.

The Mrs. made a lovely bow to top the tree, right next to the suet.

Stale Italian bread, soaked in bacon fat then dipped in thistle.

Thoughts of Pine Siskens are dancing in my head.

Peanuts are strung with needle and twine.

The Bluejays will have a feast with these.

More bread, this time slathered with peanut butter and dipped in sunflower seed, and hung as an ornament with twine.

Tufted Titmice were after these, moments after they were put up.

Ahh, this tree will be magical!

Strands of cranberries and raisins are necklaced around the tree.

How long before Cedar Waxwings find these?

We tried to string the homemade popcorn, they kept breaking so we balled them in an onion bag.

This is going to be great, this tree is awesome, birds of many varieties will soon come the visit, we can't wait!

It then hits me... what about Rocky and Bullwinkle? How long will this tree last, if a deer finds it?

A few pesky squirrels shouldn't be too much of a problem, no?

OK, so maybe we'll have to refill the tree every few days or so, just as we do with the other feeders.

No problem.

Sunset had now come, we turned on the lights, the tree was beautiful, and all was well.

The following morning sunrise came and the tree was still standing, at least a deer didn't go and get his antlers caught up in the lights. 

I see is movement within the branches, must be a titmouse or junco feeding on the seeds...

The branches are bouncing to much for a small bird, I see gray, but its not feathers, it's fur.

Rocky is engulfing everything he can,  no problem we'll just make more. 

Rocky enjoying the peanut butter and seed bread, in fact he and his crew had just about eaten everything on the tree in less then a hour... stuff that tooks us several hours to make, oh well.

It's the thought that counts, right?

Later in the day as sunset approached, I plugged the lights in.. what the #%&^@  why is the whole top half of the tree not working?

Seems Rocky doesn't know the difference between strands of peanut and strands of LIGHTS!!!

 Thankfully the power was off, so it made for a good laugh.

This morning I just threw the nuts and stuff on the ground just as I always have.

 I'm now hoping these squirrels don't develop a taste for copper wire and plastic insulation, while we still have a few lights left!