Squirrel

I bought some bird seed to fill my "squirrel proof" bird feeder. I also bought a suet cake to put in my suet cake holding bird feeder. Here they are.





Nice of the squirrel to pose eh?

Anyway, what was intended to be a mission to feed the birds and attract some color to my back deck has turned into a battle between myself and the tree rats. They honed in on the suet cake almost immediately. They made short work of it. I tried to thwart their onslaught by storming out the door. Throwing rocks. I even used my sons Nerf gun. I hit one in the ass. Alas undeterred by my defenses, the varmits won.


Tree rats 1

Morning Thunder 0

They then set there sites on the seed feeder. I purchased this style because it specifically touted itself as "squirrel proof". I used it all last year and no squirrel issues. This year different story. The squirrels have been dining on seed until today. I had the feeder a little higher in the tree yesterday. Its former location was near a branch that might as well of been a dinning room chair. The squirrels just sat on that branch and spent their sweet time digging out the seed. You can see they have eaten about two to three inches worth of seed in one day.

Last evening I moved the feeder to the chair. It hangs a little lower, but the tree rats cannot get to the seed. Now I have never seen more than two squirrels at, or around the feeder. Since the seed is no longer easily acquired, they seem to have brought in the whole brain trust. I looked out the door this morning and there were six tree rats on the deck, feeder or tree. There was one charged with getting at the seed. The others were watching intently. Chirping him on. The best minds in the squirrel race seem to be stumped.

Tree rats 1

Morning Thunder 1

It must have been a good year for nuts in the neighborhood. There are way more squirrels than the previous five years we have lived here. We used to have a few owls living in the woods behind us. They seem to have moved on or died. Hence the explosion in the population I suppose. A hawk has moved in now. It came screaming by my window a few months back no doubt after a meal. I am hoping my little bird feeder ends up feeding a bird of prey. Serves them right. Don't steal from the little pretty birds, their scary big brother might be watching.