Summer of My Discontent (Squirrel Division)

Apple season is nearly over and the only fruit still on the tree is way at the top, where I can't reach it even with my extension pole. However, the gray squirrels have no problem. They climb the main trunk to a branch, then carefully go along until they reach an apple. If the thin branch bends too far and they could fall and break a leg, they leave the fruit alone. At least for the moment.

I watch them do this from my porch and find myself developing a begrudging admiration for Sciurus carolinsis, even as it wreaks havoc throughout my backyard.

"Eastern Gray Squirrel" by DFChurch is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 

According to the "Mammals of North America" field guide (Kenn Kaufman is one of its authors), the Eastern gray squirrel has a varied diet that includes fruit, nuts, bird eggs, tree buds, insects, even carrion. "As many people have learned, these squirrels are also very good at raiding bird feeders," the authors add with droll understatement.

Well, duh.

Thanks to the squirrels, I've finally taken in my last feeder for the summer. Either the recent heavy rains pushed down the protective baffle to a height where the squirrels could jump on it, or a squirrel that wanted some food ASAP managed to grab the edge and pull the baffle down. Whatever happened, I went out one morning with the feeder for the cardinal family and a short time later looked out and couldn't understand why it was at such a strange angle... until I saw the two squirrels on it. Out I went and in came the feeder. No more summer feeding. 

The cardinals came and looked for the seed but flew off. I am presuming the young cardinal following its parents can now feed itself because I no longer hear it begging. The male still flies to the feeder pole every so often as a perch to scan for insects below and I feel a twinge of guilt. 

Meanwhile, the squirrels climb the apple tree almost as fast as I can pick up partially eaten apples in my bucket, dump them in a far corner and then go back inside. If I am not fast enough to pick up this fruit, the deer come to finish it off. Judging from all the deer poop I shoveled up the other day so MH could mow the area, I haven't been very fast. 

Apples and nest box (Margo D. Beller)

So I started racing the squirrels for apples by whacking the branches with the extension pole. I know the apple tree wasn't pleased but it was me or the squirrels. So far I have made six pints of apple sauce and one apple cobbler. 

However, the decline in remaining apples comes too late for the house wrens, which deserted the nest box. The combination of too many hungry squirrels in the tree and my being out there with my stick, albeit as far from the nest box as possible, was too much for the wren pair, which would scold me even if I just stood under the tree. 

One morning I went out with my bucket and found the box turned around after a night of heavy rain. I turned it back and saw the opening was filled with nesting material, so much I could not imagine how even something as small as a house wren could get in there to tend to young. I left it alone. Over the next few days I would hear a wren sing as close as a yard away, but nothing came to the apple tree. Finally, I pulled some of the material out of the box. No peeping chicks. No smell of rotting eggs. A few days later I took down the box and cleared it. Many twigs, a few feathers, even a bit of plastic. No eggs. I re-hung the box and now hope for another wren pair in my yard that won't be as jinxed as the last pair.

So that's the havoc. Where does the squirrel admiration come in?

How squirrels adapt (Margo D. Beller)

These rats with bushy tails are survivors. When we have a hard winter with a lot of ice-covered snow and the squirrels can't reach their buried stores, they devise rather interesting ways to get to the feeders if the birds don't drop seeds fast enough. I've written about the really bad winter where squirrels used the accumulated snowpack as a springboard to vault the baffle and grab the "anti-squirrel" cage of the feeders. One squirrel, I discovered, tried to gnaw through the metal bars (the green plastic that keeps the bars from rusting was gone) and then tried to pull the bars apart to stick its head inside. (How it would've gotten past the plastic tube I don't know but I'm sure it would've, somehow.)

Squirrels are smart. They know they can't get behind my deer netting (unlike the smaller chipmunks, alas) because they might not be able to make a clean getaway if I suddenly show up. Do a search under "squirrel feeder videos" and you are likely to find both videos from the makers of these "squirrel-proof" feeders and the people who were greatly entertained watching the squirrels attempt to get food from them. But these feeders don't stop squirrels, they only slow them down (as my picture above shows). 

There is always one particularly smart squirrel that vexes me by its acrobatics even as I admire its abilities. According to MH, who once raised gerbils, the smart squirrel is likely a female that does what she must because she is "eating for six," i.e. pregnant. 

There was the squirrel I found grasping a screen on my enclosed porch and then, after much calculation, jumping across to one of the feeders. There was the squirrel that figured out it could climb the pear tree to jump to the porch roof and go after the acorns other squirrels were dropping from the oak trees above. There are also the stupid squirrels that are hawk or owl food or suddenly run out in front of your car and become roadkill. They will scamper along power lines or even gnaw on them, electrocuting themselves and creating a power outage.

There are regions where people still hunt squirrels but in urban areas such as Central Park, gray squirrels have become used to being fed by humans. In my backyard squirrels dig many holes to bury nuts for winter or dig up other squirrels' nuts to eat. They can do a lot of digging, including in my unnetted flower beds. They might even climb into your house attic.

If humans want to take their picture and feed them peanuts from their hands, the squirrels won't mind. If I am stupid enough to put out a feeder at a time when most birds aren't as interested in sunflower seeds, squirrels will take things into their own paws.

Apple season is just about over. Acorn season is around the corner. So is squirrel birthing season. Joy.