Vexing the Squirrel

Yes, I know this supposed to be a blog about birds, but if you feed them, you no doubt have these fluffy tailed thieves around as well.

I put up a new bird feeder today. A BIG feeder that holds 6 pounds of food, so I don’t have to refill every half an hour. The birds took to it immediately, but it made a resident black squirrel think about things for a bit.

Maybe if I...

Maybe if I...

Or I could...

Or I could...

And don’t think I wasn’t getting a great deal of amusement out of this indecision! I swear he was glaring at me as I was chuckling on the deck.

This might work...

This might work...

Ah! Got it!

Ah! Got it!

We have a very zen-like attitude to the black/gray squirrels in our yard.  We don’t have squirrel-proof feeders. We’ve decided life is too short to try and outwit these guys for long, and they make us laugh a lot. That’s a fair trade.

2 Comments

  1. Just a note about these squirrels – the species is Eastern Gray Squirrel, the same ones you have in Florida. They are not native to Calgary. They have almost completely replaced the native Red Squirrel in the city. The black, brown and gray forms are all the same species, and differently coloured ones could even be siblings.

    Since they are an introduced species here, it is legal to trap and kill them, and some people do. But like you, I enjoy watching them at our bird feeders and put up with them. Last week one chewed a large head off of a sunflower and dragged the whole thing off.

  2. Thank you for the laugh. We have the same thing here in Florida with the brown squirrels. They are SO entertaining!

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