Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have owned this feeder for about two months...here are my impressions. First, the quality of the materials used is quite good. The feeder seems to be solidly made. However, the design is terrible, especially when it comes to protecting the seed during rain. Because the sidewalls are wire mesh, rain saturates the seed. This also happens because the "roof", or top cap, is far to small in diameter. Water will literally drop off the edge of the cap and fall directly into the seed tray at the bottom of the feeder. The top cap needs to be twice as large in diameter and the sidewalls need to be made of something solid. Another problem is the bottom seed tray is also to small in diameter, like the top cap. Birds easily kick the seed out and onto the ground. This leads me to the feeding ports, which are far to large. Birds set on the ports/perches and scratch seed out of the ports...and of course it falls to the ground. The feeder holds 8lbs of seed, which is great, but don't expect that all of the seed will be eaten by birds. I connected a seed catcher to the bottom of the feeder and discovered that about 3-4lbs of seed was typically scratched out of the feeder and fell into the seed catcher. Now this is not a big problem if the seed in the seed catcher were to remain dry, because it can be put back into the feeder. But if it rains you will discover the seed in the seed catch, seed in the bottom tray of the feeder, and seed in the feeder itself saturated and germinating. The bottom line is, if you live in a rainy location be prepared to constantly be cleaning the feeder...and wasting seed. A larger diameter top cap/bottom tray and smaller (and fewer) feeding ports could solve this messy problem.