Tangled Branches: Cultivated

happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia

Thursday, March 06, 2008

&%@# Squirrels

Just saw this ~~annoying~~ ~~frustrating~~ amusing sight at my bird feeder.

Notice the rat-like tail beneath all the fluff.

Labels: critters, squirrels

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Valentine Thoughts

...of a cozy little love nest?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Labels: seasons, squirrels

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

What Squirrels Think About

How to get into so-called squirrel-proof feeders.

Most of the time it isn't necessary to actually get into the feeder, but this little overachiever managed just that, as shown here in a classic shot from this blog in April of 2004. That particular feeder has been retired.

Currently, I have 2 feeders in the backyard in northern Virginia. The squirrels know at least a couple of ways to get seed out of both of them. Both feeders are suspended from tree branches using long hooks. The easiest way for the squirrels to get a small amount of seed out of them is to climb down the hook and then jump to the nearest tree trunk. This gets the feeder swinging and generally spills some seed out onto the ground.

Here's another technique they recently developed. This is one of those feeders where the perch is attached to a spring which closes a door over the seed if there's too much weight on the perch. Ah, but what if we ignore the perch?

Just climb down the hook and suspend yourself from the roof.

Oops, stay away from the perch, remember?

Now we can get down to serious eating.

They've determined that the spring on the side of the feeder has something to do with the door, and occasionally they pull it out. They did it again yesterday afternoon, causing me to go out, cursing, to put it back together.

Below, we have something I saw today for the first time. The suet feeder was added last week, replacing a different style of suet feeder. I thought the roof on the suet feeder would be slippery enough to keep the squirrels from getting a toehold. Wrong! I watched as this squirrel jumped from the nearest tree trunk onto the suet feeder and then grabbed hold of the seed feeder. Chow time! The dome over this seed feeder had been one of my most effective squirrel-deterrents.

Oh, there are birds too. More pictures later.

Thanks Frances, for planting the idea for this topic.