Most beloved American brands have an origin story rooted in necessity, frustration, or a simple but powerful insight that everyone else missed. Droll Yankees’ story has all three — and it starts in 1969 with an engineer, a backyard, and a problem that millions of birders had accepted as unsolvable.
The Man Who Started It All: Peter Kilham
Peter Kilham was, by training and temperament, an engineer and an artist. He was also a devoted backyard birder — someone who watched birds not as a casual hobby but with the focused attention of someone who genuinely wanted to understand what he was observing.
In the 1960s, the backyard bird feeding hobby was in its infancy and the equipment available to birders was correspondingly primitive. Open platform feeders were the norm. They exposed seed to rain, attracted rodents, were impossible to keep clean, and gave birds nowhere to perch that provided any protection.
Kilham recognised that what backyard birding needed was not a better platform feeder — it was a fundamentally different kind of feeder. One that protected the seed, allowed birds to feed in a natural clinging posture, could be kept clean, and looked good enough that people would want it in their gardens.
1969: The World’s First Commercial Tube Bird Feeder
In 1969, in Plainfield, Connecticut, Peter Kilham invented the A-6F — the world’s first commercial tube bird feeder. The design was remarkably elegant: a cylindrical polycarbonate tube suspended vertically, with multiple discrete feeding ports fitted with small perches. Seed was protected inside the tube. Birds could access it from multiple positions simultaneously. The tube could be removed, cleaned, and reinstalled in minutes.
It sounds obvious now because the tube feeder has become the defining image of backyard bird feeding. But in 1969 it was a genuine innovation — a design that transformed both the look and function of bird feeding and in doing so created the modern backyard birding hobby.
The A-6F became a best seller almost immediately. More than fifty years later, a direct descendant — the Ring Pull Silver Classic Sunflower Feeder — is still one of the best-selling bird feeders available on Amazon. The design has barely changed because it barely needed to.
Related Posts:
A Brand Name That Tells a Story
The Droll Yankees name predates the bird feeder by nearly a decade. Peter Kilham and his friend Alan Bemis started Droll Yankees in the early 1960s as — of all things — a record label. The name was a wry, self-aware nod to New England regional identity. Droll means dry, subtle, quietly humorous. Yankees, in this context, refers to the laconic, craftsman-minded tradition of the New England region where Kilham and Bemis lived and worked.
When Kilham pivoted from records to bird feeders, he kept the name. It suited the product: dry wit, Connecticut craftsmanship, a product that did its job so well that it never needed to shout about it.
The 1990s: Solving the Squirrel Problem
The original tube feeder was a revelation. It was also not squirrel-proof. As the backyard birding hobby grew through the 1970s and 1980s, squirrel management became the dominant frustration for feeder owners. Every innovation birders tried — greased poles, hot pepper additives, dome baffles — was eventually defeated by sufficiently persistent squirrels.
Droll Yankees’ answer arrived in the 1990s with the Yankee Flipper: a motorized, weight-sensitive spinning perch that could distinguish between the weight of a songbird and the weight of a squirrel, and respond accordingly. It was named the number one squirrel-proof bird feeder by Birds & Blooms Magazine, became an internet sensation, and converted a generation of frustrated birders into lifelong Droll Yankees customers.
2012: The Woodstream Acquisition
In 2012, Droll Yankees was acquired by Woodstream Corporation, the Pennsylvania-based company known for managing a portfolio of established American wildlife and garden brands.
For many brands, acquisition by a larger corporation signals the beginning of manufacturing compromises, cost-cutting, and slow brand erosion. That has not been the case with Droll Yankees. Woodstream has maintained the Connecticut manufacturing operations, the American workforce, and the lifetime warranty that generations of birders have trusted. The product quality is, by all accounts, unchanged.
Today: 55 Years of Unbroken Excellence
More than 55 years after the first tube feeder left Peter Kilham’s workshop in Plainfield, Connecticut, Droll Yankees bird feeders are available globally through Amazon, reaching backyard birders in every corner of North America and beyond.
The core product lineup has expanded from the original tube feeder to include motorized squirrel-proof models, mechanical squirrel-proof models, dedicated finch and nyjer feeders with patented mesh technology, dome-shield weather guard feeders, and the Onyx Clever Clean series with its tool-free disassembly system.
What has not changed is the fundamental commitment that drove Peter Kilham in 1969: building feeders that are genuinely excellent, that last decades rather than seasons, and that are backed by a warranty that reflects real confidence in the product.