Had the same problem yesterday afternoon. It was about as good as it gets, 35 degrees, spitting a little snow, perhaps 6 _ 7 inches on the ground and practically no wind. Since I haven't had near as much hunting time this season as I would like I did set up on a corn feeder.
Suddenly I saw a half dozen small birds fly in under the feeder. I also hear a bunch of crows raising cane about 75 yards up the mountain above the feeder. I had my hearing aides in and turned up pretty high, I was going to hear any deer trying to sneak in behind me in the slightly crusted snow. Then it happened. That feeder went off and I dang near jumped out of the stand (I did have my safety harness on and hooked to the life line LOL). I saw exactly zero deer but it was a good feeling to be out hunting.
I've had the exact same results, at two different locations, and my feeders are hung about 15 feet high between two trees. Relatively quiet feeders, too. I don't understand it.
I've watched deer and turkeys come running when the feeder goes off. Saw a little six pointer run away like he was on fire when the feeder came on. He probably wasn't from around here. lol
I too have mine hanging about 15 feet up between two trees. Same feeder that I cranked the barrel two high and since one end of the cable is quite a bit higher than the other end the feeder moved over real close to one of the trees. I had just filled the feeder with 350 lbs of corn. A few days later when i went back to pull the SD card i noticed parts and pieces of the timer laying on the ground. What the heck has happened here. When I got home and viewed the videos on the SD card it became clear. It showed a dang bear climbing up the tree, knocking the timer completely off the bottom of the barrel and dumping ALL of the corn. It also showed the darn bear sleeping in the corn pile for two or three more days.
So word to the wise. Make sure if you hang your feeder like that don't leave it positioned close enough to either tree so that a bear can reach it. Incidentally I did not expect a bear there, maybe 100 -- 150 yards behind my house.
As can be seen by this thread, deer are like real estate - location, location, location. It seems to me that deer in rural counties are bothered by a feeder but deer in a more populated county are not.