Disappearing seed mystery solved

We've been noticing that our birdfeeder was emptying in less than a day and sometimes in less than eight hours. House- and gold-finches are little flying piggies who sit and eat and eat and eat so we just chalked up the disappearing food to them. After all, the juveniles are out and are eating (or are being fed after flapping their wings and opening their mouths) so it made sense that the increased number of flying pigs would eat more food.

It turns out that while they did eat a lot of the food, they're not the main reason the food has been disappearing so quickly. Here's the culprit:

Notice that his chubby little cheeks are full of seeds. I watched this chipmunk make four separate trips to the feeder this afternoon to stuff those cute little cheeks. No wonder the food is disappearing!

I took a bunch of pictures of this cute little thief at the feeder. Enjoy them after the jump.

Climbing up the pole

Can he make the jump from here?

Made it!

Make sure no one is coming

Dig out some seeds

Are there seeds here?

More seeds! 

There must be seeds back here

You looking at me?

Starting from the front again

Contorting to get every last seed out

No seeds go un-taken