Squirrel slalom
Wednesday July 18th 2012, 11:01 pm
Filed under: Wildlife

Caught the teenage black squirrel on the suet cake the other day and went looking for something to block him: that’s my wren feeder.

Plant pots have holes to string the string through, hey!

Woke up early this morning to find him completely encircling that four-inch cage, tail and head out of sight on the far side, his rear towards me. He had no idea.

Reality hit when I opened the door a few feet away, squirt gun going. He freaked and landed on the wooden box, not far of a fall and onto a surface with some give (phew!), but it made for a loud landing and wild scrambling and a lot more respect for boundaries.

But to be sure. I threaded the edge of a paper plate to hang above the left side of the pot where I think he managed to climb down it on. I only wish I had the ability to motion-sens0r video whatever he’ll do next.


4 Comments so far
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Alison’s Boundary Enforcement Academy for Squirrels, open for business.

Comment by Channon 07.19.12 @ 5:56 am

Hey! We’re trying to encourage employment, not t’other way ’round. How’s an acrobat supposed to get work if he can’t practice!

Comment by Don Meyer 07.19.12 @ 9:08 am

love it!

when I was out this morning mowing the front lawn the squirrel was up in the tree just chattering at me

the last two days I’ve come out in the morning to find small tree branches laying on the van where the squirrels have been running in the branches — the drought is so bad here that the little branches about the size of a pencil are brittle enough that you can just break them off even though they have green leaves on them

Comment by Bev 07.19.12 @ 9:18 am

We got a different kind of suet cake recently (our local Wegmans used to have 10-packs and hasn’t for a couple of months, so we ordered some through Amazon, sigh) and the second one went into the feeder two nights ago. Last night there was a huge pileated woodpecker on the suet. I know some people around see those big ones frequently, but we see one maybe once every few years, not regularly. He spent quite a while on the suet and then flew off.

We don’t see flickers much either, though I know they live in this area. I saw one going through the back yard once several years ago. Big bird also.

Most of what we get are red bellied, hairy, and downy woodpeckers and a full assortment of sparrows and finches, including the purple finches, house finches, and goldfinches that eat the black oil sunflower seed as well as the thistle seed in the other feeder.

The hummingbird feeder hasn’t seen much/any action this year so far. Ruby throated hummingbirds should be around. Other people see them. Not us. Yet.

The apple feeder that DDIL brought back from NZ for us has a fresh apple half in it. So far, nobody’s been pecking at it. Mostly it doesn’t get any business but by now they should be used to seeing it.

Yes, we have raccoon and squirrel prevention on the feeders. It seems to work ok. What we also need is CROW, grackle, and starling prevention and the only thing I can think of is to sit out there and yell at them. But then, that would prevent all the other birds as well. Hmmm.

The nesting boxes/houses are a tale for another day.

Comment by sjanova 07.19.12 @ 1:58 pm



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