I WAS unaware of the Commons debate on protecting squirrels mentioned by David J Crawford (Letters, July 5). I certainly attach more importance to that debate than Mr Crawford, and if I had been aware of it I would have asked my MP to argue strongly against protecting these verminous tree rats, as from my own experience the local ones here are well able to look after themselves.

I am daily engaged in losing a war of attrition with a family of grey ones who treat my bird feeder as their go-to food bank. I have to admire their ingenuity in overcoming every new obstacle I put in place, most recently by learning to shake my “squirrel-proof" feeder vigorously to empty its contents on to the ground. In response to this I now hang the feeder inside a bucket in the hope that this may deter the squirrels from climbing into it to get at the feeder , and if that doesn’t work then at least the bucket will catch the contents of the feeder when they shake it to empty it.

The little birds do not appear to be phased by the bucket and nip into it, grab a seed and fly out again quickly. Any suggestions of more long-term solutions would be welcome, apart from the nuclear option of stopping feeding the birds.

Alan Fitzpatrick, Dunlop.