Well, they've finally done it.
After four years of peace and quiet, four years of feeding birds without interruption, four years of dodging the bullet that pierces every birder's flesh eventually, they've done it:
The squirrels have come.
Since we moved here in the summer of 1999, my main feeder has hung in our backyard, about seven feet up and ten feet away from the trunk of our weeping cherry tree. I hung it using a short chain (which looped over the branch) and some discarded nylon hay-baling cord that I found at the old farmhouse just before we moved. The combination of lateral distance from the trunk, vertical distance from the branch, and perhaps a dose of dumb luck (or dumb squirrels) kept the feeder safe from rodent invasion for years. Instead, I was treated to an uninterrupted stream of cardinals, chipping sparrows, downy woodpeckers, mourning doves, indigo buntings, white-breasted nuthatches, goldfinches, white-throated sparrows, house finches, slate-colored juncos, black-capped chickadees, and even red-bellied woodpeckers. But no squirrels.
Oh, sure, they lived in the tree, and they cheerfully cleaned up the seed that the birds kicked or let fall to the ground, but they never bothered the feeder itself. But then, about a week ago, I saw something I'd never seen before: a squirrel squatting on the bottom rim of the feeder, greedily snarfing down everything it could reach. I ran out to the deck and scared it off, but I had a bad feeling about it--the dam hadn't given way yet, but there was certainly a big crack in it.
And from there it was only a matter of time. Every few hours, I'd discover a squirrel on the feeder, often with a few henchmen lurking underneath, waiting for spillage; the only question was how I might stop them. The first thing to establish was how they were getting access--were they jumping? Climbing? Parachuting? I had a pretty good idea from the increasingly frayed nylon cord that supported the feeder: signs of squirrel clawing, I was willing to bet. Eventually I saw one shimmying delicately down the chain to the cord, and that sent me off to the tool box.
If there's one thing an experienced birder knows, it's that squirrel-proof feeders usually aren't. Squirrels are just too creative, too acrobatic, too relentless to be discouraged by baffles, wires, or anything other than active human intervention, usually involving firearms. Nonetheless, I wasn't letting this pass without at least token resistance on my part. In my house are a number of tools, and some useful materials from which I felt sure I could construct a squirrel baffle; mine was constructed from vinyl, twelve inches in diameter, with a center spindle hole approximately 1/4" across.
OK, it was an old copy of Paul McCartney & Wings' Red Rose Speedway. A few years back, I had grabbed it off a pile of albums that a colleague was throwing out; because of the artsy-but-irritating 1970s habit of putting absolutely no information about songs on the cover (a gatefold cover at that), I had been under the mistaken impression that it contained "Helen Wheels," one of the half-dozen or so post-Beatles songs of Paul's that I actually like. (Others include "Band on the Run," "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey," "Live and Let Die," and "Ballroom Dancing.") Unfortunately, as I later found out, the only familiar song on the album was "My Love," which is one of the far-more-than-a-dozen post-Beatles songs of Paul's that I find saccharine and annoying. (Others include "Let 'Em In," "Bluebird," "Ebony and Ivory," and "The Girl Is Mine.") In short, I had found the perfect album to turn into a squirrel baffle.
Alas, it was not the perfect squirrel baffle. Oh, sure, I saw it send one hungry young rodent on a one-way trip into empty space, but even in the process, the squirrel's claws did more damage to the nylon cord. If the baffle couldn't protect the cord from further damage, I knew the whole shooting match would be coming down before long.
And this morning, as I gazed out my back door, I was proven right: the chain still lay across the branch, and strands of nylon still dangled from the ends of the chain, but the feeder lay helpless on the ground, its bottom rim popped off from the impact. Three squirrels were hunched around it, nibbling at their ill-gotten gains.
They scattered as soon as I came through the door to retrieve the remains of my fallen comrade in the bird-feeding wars. I poured the remaining seed out, hoping the ground-feeding birds would at least get one more meal out of the feeder, and sadly returned to the house.
It is a black, black day.
After four years of peace and quiet, four years of feeding birds without interruption, four years of dodging the bullet that pierces every birder's flesh eventually, they've done it:
The squirrels have come.
Since we moved here in the summer of 1999, my main feeder has hung in our backyard, about seven feet up and ten feet away from the trunk of our weeping cherry tree. I hung it using a short chain (which looped over the branch) and some discarded nylon hay-baling cord that I found at the old farmhouse just before we moved. The combination of lateral distance from the trunk, vertical distance from the branch, and perhaps a dose of dumb luck (or dumb squirrels) kept the feeder safe from rodent invasion for years. Instead, I was treated to an uninterrupted stream of cardinals, chipping sparrows, downy woodpeckers, mourning doves, indigo buntings, white-breasted nuthatches, goldfinches, white-throated sparrows, house finches, slate-colored juncos, black-capped chickadees, and even red-bellied woodpeckers. But no squirrels.
Oh, sure, they lived in the tree, and they cheerfully cleaned up the seed that the birds kicked or let fall to the ground, but they never bothered the feeder itself. But then, about a week ago, I saw something I'd never seen before: a squirrel squatting on the bottom rim of the feeder, greedily snarfing down everything it could reach. I ran out to the deck and scared it off, but I had a bad feeling about it--the dam hadn't given way yet, but there was certainly a big crack in it.
And from there it was only a matter of time. Every few hours, I'd discover a squirrel on the feeder, often with a few henchmen lurking underneath, waiting for spillage; the only question was how I might stop them. The first thing to establish was how they were getting access--were they jumping? Climbing? Parachuting? I had a pretty good idea from the increasingly frayed nylon cord that supported the feeder: signs of squirrel clawing, I was willing to bet. Eventually I saw one shimmying delicately down the chain to the cord, and that sent me off to the tool box.
If there's one thing an experienced birder knows, it's that squirrel-proof feeders usually aren't. Squirrels are just too creative, too acrobatic, too relentless to be discouraged by baffles, wires, or anything other than active human intervention, usually involving firearms. Nonetheless, I wasn't letting this pass without at least token resistance on my part. In my house are a number of tools, and some useful materials from which I felt sure I could construct a squirrel baffle; mine was constructed from vinyl, twelve inches in diameter, with a center spindle hole approximately 1/4" across.
OK, it was an old copy of Paul McCartney & Wings' Red Rose Speedway. A few years back, I had grabbed it off a pile of albums that a colleague was throwing out; because of the artsy-but-irritating 1970s habit of putting absolutely no information about songs on the cover (a gatefold cover at that), I had been under the mistaken impression that it contained "Helen Wheels," one of the half-dozen or so post-Beatles songs of Paul's that I actually like. (Others include "Band on the Run," "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey," "Live and Let Die," and "Ballroom Dancing.") Unfortunately, as I later found out, the only familiar song on the album was "My Love," which is one of the far-more-than-a-dozen post-Beatles songs of Paul's that I find saccharine and annoying. (Others include "Let 'Em In," "Bluebird," "Ebony and Ivory," and "The Girl Is Mine.") In short, I had found the perfect album to turn into a squirrel baffle.
Alas, it was not the perfect squirrel baffle. Oh, sure, I saw it send one hungry young rodent on a one-way trip into empty space, but even in the process, the squirrel's claws did more damage to the nylon cord. If the baffle couldn't protect the cord from further damage, I knew the whole shooting match would be coming down before long.
And this morning, as I gazed out my back door, I was proven right: the chain still lay across the branch, and strands of nylon still dangled from the ends of the chain, but the feeder lay helpless on the ground, its bottom rim popped off from the impact. Three squirrels were hunched around it, nibbling at their ill-gotten gains.
They scattered as soon as I came through the door to retrieve the remains of my fallen comrade in the bird-feeding wars. I poured the remaining seed out, hoping the ground-feeding birds would at least get one more meal out of the feeder, and sadly returned to the house.
It is a black, black day.
