Your Squirrel Feeder is inadequate. Here’s another.
Please, Sir? Can I have some more?
In summer 2024, I penned a piece about squirrels. It was written with the embers of anger still glowing after my failure to repair the ravages of these destructive little tree rats. It told the story of how our furry House Guardian, Arrow, defends our garden to the best of his canine ability.
Later, in November, my submission recorded relief at the apparent departure of the slugs for another year and my anti-Gastropod preparations for 2025. But I also noted increased activity of the neighbourhood’s population of Sciurus carolinensis (Grey Squirrels).
Much the same has taken place this year. Moreover, the little blighters have obviously been busy over the last nine months or so, since numbers are definitely up! Science suggests they can have two litters per annum, and several have obviously had a good go at beating this statistic.
A couple of years back, as a particularly harsh winter set in, I hung a bird feeder in the branches of one of the magnolias in the front garden. It was positioned so that whatever sunlight fell upon Tunbridge Wells, any avian visitors would be able to dry their feathers and warm themselves while waiting their turn at the peanuts. It took about a day before I spotted fluttering invitees availing themselves of the food. Any peanuts falling onto the flower bed below were enough for some fat wood pigeons. Inevitably, the feeder drew in yobbish terrorists, like Jays and Magpies. They would scatter any finches and sparrows which retreated to nearby bushes while the bigger birds flapped and fought each other.
But a daily top up of food was all that I had to do. For about three or four days.
I’d poured coffee for myself and stood at the kitchen sink, sipping. All was quiet in the magnolia bed. Dappled sunshine illuminated the golden leaves of a nearby birch tree. It was very restful. My thoughts roamed freely among the tasks awaiting me that day.
But then sudden, twitching movement in the lawn beyond attracted my attention. A grey streak bounded beneath the lower branches and up, into the air, to grasp the wire framework of the feeder. Using one clawed arm, the squirrel pulled nut after nut through the mesh. Some went straight into its cheek pouches, others fell to the ground. I shooed it away.
I had a distinct feeling, though, that it was hiding in a nearby tree, keeping watch. Obviously, I couldn’t stay on guard for the rest of the day. And it was no surprise at all that the feeder was utterly empty before lunch.
When refilling, I resited it, wondering if nestling the thing between the maze of smaller branches might help the birds and hinder the squirrels.
Fat chance. The next time I looked, there were three squirrels going at it with vigour. And the time after that when I checked, the feeder had gone. The whole bloody thing. Disappeared. It wasn’t on the ground beneath, hiding in the ground cover plants. It wasn’t on the lawn, either. It had gone.
I had occasion to call on some neighbours the next day and asked if I might check their front gardens quickly in case the bird feeder had ‘been blown there by the wind’.
They probably thought I was barking mad. Perhaps I am. I examined the scene of the crime more carefully. The feeder had been fastened to the branch with wire left over from assembling our gabion cages looped through a carabiner ‘D’ ring. Yet both those fastening materials had vanished too.
Wait – this means the squirrels had gnawed through climbing grade steel. And then hauled away their prize to somewhere out of sight. The wire mesh of the feeder won’t have troubled them at all. Is this my fevered imagination at play? Hmmn…
The local garden centre had a ‘Special’ on bird feeders this year. I succumbed. “Are you sure this is proof against squirrels?” I asked.
“Sure, mate. No squirrel is gonna get in there!”
Still doubtful, I paid up. And the new feeder now hangs in the magnolia bush. The birds have begun visiting. Hooray! It was below freezing last night and for most of yesterday. They need the nutrition. But the level of peanuts in the feeder has been descending at a suspiciously quick rate. Sure enough, the squirrels are back, too.
“Go figure…” you might say. Adding that the definition of insanity is repeating an action while expecting a different outcome.
But I have developed a grudging admiration for the squirrels. I still hate them, with a passion, you understand – though I couldn’t help but laugh in resigned disbelief when I saw this outside the front door.
It looks for all the world as though they’ve nicked someone else’s feeder and brought it to me for refilling. Should I seek professional help? Their behaviour is, as they say in South London, ‘Doin’ me ‘ead in’.