Tag Archives: squirrels

Symbol of peace? Tell it to the squirrels

We now have 3 female squirrels visiting us who are either pregnant or nursing. Today one was feeding when a second turned up with two young squirrels in tow. The latecomer was chased off, and the youngsters proceeded to spend most of the rest of the afternoon playing in the treetops.

I seem to have started an interspecies conflict, however. One of the doves has worked out that there’s often sunflower seed to be had on the rear deck. On Friday I saw a squirrel being chased along the fence by an angry dove.

I’m going to have to come up with some kind of seed dispenser that’s dove-proof but not squirrel-proof. Maybe a plastic container with some smallish holes in, attached to the mat with some wire.

Buster has also returned. I’m going to try to get a good photo.

Tooth and claw (and beak)

On Friday, I was gazing out into the back yard when I saw a hawk swoop towards the house, turn to the side at the last moment, and try to grab a squirrel from the fence.

I’m glad to report that he failed, but the squirrel was clearly very disturbed by his near death encounter. He leapt onto the trunk of the nearest tree, and called out—a type of sound I hadn’t heard from a squirrel before. It was a kind of squeak, starting low in pitch and going higher. I’m assuming it’s squirrel for “Holy crap, guys, look out, there’s a bird of prey around!”

Christmas preparations

We’ve been out getting the food for Christmas. The supermarket sells corn for squirrels—it even has a picture of a squirrel on the bag. I also picked up a big $3 bag of sunflower seeds, it’ll be their Christmas gift. The man standing behind us in the checkout queue was a squirrel skeptic. “You’re feeding rats!”

We got a fake tree this year, after Mythbusters covered how much damage a tree can do if it catches on fire and rothko decided she didn’t want a real tree in the house after all. Safety aside, there’s something to be said for not having needles everywhere, and having branches strong enough to hold up weightier ornaments. You can get Christmas tree smell as scented candles, and probably as an aerosol too.

The big excitement, though, is that we managed to get some mince pies this year. I don’t think I’d seen any since we visited my family for Christmas several years ago.

No Wii for Christmas. I tried stores, I tried online, no luck. I even tried the Amazon customers vote, which said I had a slightly better chance of winning the chance to buy a Wii than I had of getting hemorrhoids, which kinda makes me feel better that that sort of probability is by no means a sure thing.

Squirrel discoveries

Things squirrels eat:

  • Corn.
  • Nuts.
  • More corn.
  • Sunflower seeds.
  • Peanuts in their shells.
  • Pecans.
  • Tomatoes.
  • Even more corn.
  • Strawberries.

Things squirrels will not eat:

  • Organic peanut butter.
  • Corn Tortillas†.
  • Guacamole.
  • Marshmallows.
  • Celery.
  • Carrots.

†However, they will carry them away to use as nesting material.

We’ve had our first sighting of new young squirrels. They have been stumbling around in the trees and bushes and practicing jumping, still learning how to be a squirrel.

Decks and squirrels

So, we finally found a builder who was interested in fixing up our decks. He sent waterproof deck coating samples, returned telephone calls, quoted a price, all the things I was naïvely expecting builders to do when I started the quest.

This morning he turned up with 3 friends at 7am to start work. I guess in Texas you have to get the work done early, before the temperature gets too high.

So it was that I came to be awake early enough to see a baby squirrel, the first youngster to visit us. He was exploring next door’s fig tree, learning how to not fall off branches. Meanwhile, a couple of adult squirrels were moving from fig to fig, testing each one to see if it was ripe.

After a while the youngster moved onto the front lawn to frolic. He rolled in the grass, ran around in circles, and practiced leaping from ground to telegraph pole and back. He also tried some gratuitous hole-digging; clearly somewhere in his genetic code is the knowledge that squirrels dig. When he masters food-gathering, he should be ready to learn burying.

Squirrels

If you didn’t see them, check the pictures of our trip to the UT campus for some Extreme Squirrel Feeding.

A while back I read that squirrels need fresh water, and summer was approaching, so we got a water bottle from the pet store and fitted it to the tree. I wasn’t sure they’d take to it, but yesterday evening Buster dropped by for a long drink.

We’ve also had a visit from a mother squirrel who was obviously taking a break from nursing. Unfortunately, Blacktip turned up and stared at her, and she shot up the fence and vanished.

We had a pretty good crop of corn this year, thanks to our furry four-legged gardeners. Fortunately, it pulls up pretty easily.

You know that infamous squirrel picture found all over the Internet? It wasn’t modified with Photoshop, as I had assumed. It’s a genuine stock photo available from Corbis.

Squirrel update with photo

We got some things called “Squirrel Logs“. They’re supposed to last as long as 12-24 ears of corn. Given the rate at which our half dozen fluffy friends go through corn, that seemed like a convenient idea.

I tried hanging one from the bungee. No deal, it seemed that they would definitely last 12x as long as corn, because the squirrels wouldn’t touch ‘em. They went straight for the corn on the squirrel-a-whirl instead, and even after eating it they continued to climb out on the whirl and sniff the corn husks rather than eat the log.

I wondered if it might just be too much work for them to knaw at the log while bouncing up and down on a spring, so I decided I needed to rig up a makeshift holder for the log—something that would stop Blacktip from trying to drag the entire thing away. I also realized they’d be more likely to sit around and chow if the log was above ground level, out of the reach of the neighbor’s cat.

I picked a sturdy chunk of wood out of the trash near a local building site, and drilled two holes in it about 1cm apart. I threaded some steel cable through one hole, through the squirrel log, through a metal hex nut, back down through the log, and then through the other hole in the wood. I twist-tied the cable underneath the wood and duct taped it out of harm’s way. Then, I positioned the wood platform over the metal fence, and attached one end to a post of the wooden fence behind the metal fence, with a small right-angle bracket. (I’m not sure why we have two fences.)

The result allows the squirrels to climb on via the fences, and sit and gnaw at the log in comfort. They can grab it and move it around, but can’t actually drag it away.

We haven’t seen Blacktip in a couple of weeks. I’m wondering if something has happened to him. I’ll put corn out all weekend, and if he doesn’t show, I think it’ll be time to put the feed box back. Frida is still a regular visitor, and we’ve also seen a new smallish squirrel with a thick tail, who had trouble working out the whole bungee thing.

Squirrel roll call

Update: Squirrels seen humping on 2005-10-13. Additional squirrels likely. FYI gestation period around 44 days, followed by 2-3 months of weaning.

Blacktip is the Alpha Squirrel. His tail is rough in shape at the end, as if he has lost part of it, and black at the tip. His preferred feeding technique is to climb the slippery pole the squirrel bungee is suspended from, lean out, grab the bungie cable with his front paws, reel in the corncob, and try to chew off some corn before his back paws lose grip. He doesn’t like the feed box much; he doesn’t like leaning into it, and doesn’t like climbing in all the way, so he ends up a squirrel sandwich between the box and the lid.

Longtail was the first squirrel to work out the feed box. He usually climbs all the way in, picks up some food, then sticks out his head to chew, watching for approaching enemies from inside the box. His bungee technique is to jump very slightly, grab the bottom of the corncob, and then climb paw-over-paw until he’s dangling in the air and gently bobbing. He’ll then grab some corn, drop to the ground, and eat it there. He also likes sunbathing on tree branches.

The Twins are almost impossible to tell apart. They’re mostly seen chasing each other from tree to tree. At least one of them feeds at the box by leaning all the way in, leaving his butt sticking out. One time Twin #1 was feeding, and Twin #2 approached and shoved the lid down on him with a paw. A major chase ensued.

Tiny is a new arrival, first seen today. He’s smaller than all the others, but fiesty—as I replaced the corncob, he sat on the tree a meter away and growled at me. I’m guessing he’s a squirrel teenager acting out, or maybe he’s just angry because he hasn’t worked out how to open the box yet. He’s also the squirrel seen humping another squirrel.