Squirrel Attack
Which is more old lady-ish – me writing about the garden or squirrels? Because those were my two options for today!
In the three years I have lived in our house, I have never seen a squirrel in our neighborhood. In fact, when Steven and I drive through the older neighborhood near our house, we usually talk about how cute the squirrels there are, and about how we don’t have any. I thought our neighborhood was just too new and didn’t have enough trees.
So when my mom brought me two bird feeders with wire cages around them, I had to ask about the cages. I laughed when she told me they were to keep the squirrels out.
Ha.
Ha.
Almost immediately after she left, Steven took those photos from inside our house. I thought it was cute and was excited we were going to have squirrels to watch. The squirrels were naughty and chewed a bit on one of our plastic bird feeders, but it was still usable.
Until yesterday. There was a fury of activity at home. Steven said Data was looking out the window, and was really excited, so Steven went to see what was going on.
Apparently he found a squirrel sitting in the feeder above, chewing the plastic to his heart’s content.
Yeah – those are the little perches that fit into the feeder. Only, the don’t anymore – the squirrel chewed out a big hole where they go.
Oh well! We still have four other feeders, so I think I can hold on to my old-lady status. Which is all that matters.
Did I mention my grandma loaned me a bird book when I was in my hometown last weekend? I told her I am going to make a spreadsheet of all the birds I see. Unfortunately, I am not joking. For someone who likes to watch birds, I can only identify a few of them! Also, she gave me some thistle seed and a thistle seed feeder.
What kind of wildlife do you see around where you live?
In our yard, we have a lot of birds, sometimes turtles, geese and ducks. The ducks really like to eat the bird seed, apparently. In totally cracks me up to see ducks waddling through our yard!
We also have A LOT of deer in the area around our home, but I have only seen them in our neighborhood a few times.
Themocracy
I LOVE the first pictures! Too funny!
And you get turtles there too? I’m jealous! I grew up with turtles at home (they’re now at my grandparents place) and I love them.
So funny! We live in a condo complex, so we’re separated from nature a bit (though there are coyotes in the hills not too far away). I don’t think I’ve ever seen a squirrel near our place. My parents live in the hills and they get rabbits, squirrels, EVERYTHING eating their plants and stuff. They have coyotes, mountain lions, deer… and there was a random cow on the front lawn once. Still don’t know what that was about.
What a naughty squirrel! Regardless, it’s still cute and I love them. In my area we have squirrels, deer, elk, bears and coyotes. Seeing the coyotes is probably my favorite though! Except when they try to lure my dog into the forest.. then I hate them.
Wow. That is a DETERMINED squirrel. I live in the city (well, in an urban neighborhood about 5 minutes from downtown Seattle); I see a LOT of dogs on gentle leads, cats and birds–crows, mainly. I should get a bird feeder, though…that would be a nice touch.
PS: I LOVE the turtle picture!
squirrels are hilarious. i was dumping water that we had in the house (like running faucets for hot water, that water can be saved!) and i heard a squirrel in the bushes….so i dumped the water in the bush…and I NAILED IT! hahaha he ran out wet and chittering angrily. oh well. =D
Squirrels can be most annoying and AMAZINGLY smart at getting what they want. We have gone to great lengths to keep ours off our feeders. You can get the feeders that close up when a certain weight is exceeded on the perch. That also keeps the fat old Blue Jays out. Those birds are bigs and they are noisy as well.
Along with all the other wild life in our yard, it would be cool to have some turtles and ducks – heck! Why not? We have just about everything else and we live in a rural neighborhood.
Ugh… squirrels can be such little brats. It’s never happened to me, but some people in other units of my complex must have rabid squirrels running around them- they chew through the wires under their cars!
Ah, squirrels. They drove my mom and her bird feeders crazy. Looks like you’ll need to get a squirrel baffle. My mom also keeps a pair of binoculars and a bird book in her kitchen so she can check out unique birds that she sees.
I do need one of those – in metal! When I was in Iowa last weekend, my grandma was showing me the metal things like that that my grandpa made to keep the squirrels out 😉
We have loads of squirrels in our neighborhood. Also possums.
We have bird feeders on our apartment balcony. We usually get gold finches, house finches, mourning doves, starlings (yuck!), chicadees, tit mouses (mice?), small woodpeckers (I think they are downeys but I’m not sure), juncos (in the winter), the occasional blue jay and cardinal. We’ve also had a hawk stalk our feeders and pick off the smaller birds! I’m sure we’ve had more birds but I don’t keep track like my roomie does. She has participated in one of those backyard bird counts before I think. She also keeps a notebook of all the different types of birds she’s seen and where/when.
We found a dead squirrel in our lost and found yesterday.
Turtles! You must have water close by. 😀 We have birdies, squirrels who knock over my feeder (it is a sitting one) and bunnies! I love the bunnies and if we’re lucky we get to see the babies too. They are so wee with lil ears and tails. Love!
We have a “wetland” (read: swamp) behind our house, and live in Lake County… which got its name because of all the natural lakes (well, I presume).
We never get to see rabbits though! Boo! 🙁
We have deer all the time. I am like a little kid every single time we see them, screaming for the kids to come see because I just think it is so cool. They have sort of lost interest but I just can’t believe we have so many animals in our backyard all the time. When we first moved in I looked in the back and told the kids “look it’s an….animal” because I just couldn’t place what it was and didn’t expect a real live beaver to be in our backyard.
We used to see turtles all the time both in the yard and in the street. My kids used to love it when we were driving and saw a turtle and stopped to help it get out of the street. I haven’t seen any recently though. One laid eggs in my neighbors yard and we got to see the baby turtles hatch and crawl into the forest. It was maybe the coolest thing I have ever seen.
I think my comment is way more old lady than your post. And I really think it isn’t so much old lady as it is that we both love nature and find joy in the little things.
LOL. You totally crack me up Tori. I am exactly the same way with Steven & Data. Both of them have also lost interest (Data not as much). 😉
We had squirrels with serious attitude when I was in college. They’d strut around campus as if they had the right of way! We have a ton of squirrels, small birds, pigeons (ugh!), rabbits, and seagulls in our neighborhood. Somehow, I’ve trained SoMi that it’s ok to chase rabbits, squirrels and seagulls, but she knows to leave the smaller birds alone.
Yep, the squirrels are very tricky and smart creatures. We have the squirrels, birds, rabbits in our hood. Not including the dogs and the cats.
Squirrels can do pretty much anything. Ha! I only have bun bun, who now appears to have a lady friend. Hmmmm….
Wow you sure do have a lot of animals in your back yard!! I usually see a lot of deer, turkeys, squirrels and chipmunks!! Last night I saw a baby chipmunk with its mom! So cute!
I find that the squirrels in Queens are a lot more brazen than their squirrel friends that live on Long Island. The Queens squirrels like to dig and burrow in our mulch and they don’t care one bit who sees them. I was sitting on our front steps one day and squirrel came and sat besides me just chillin’.
We see a lot of Orioles, Cardinals, and Doves.
growing up in nj, our backyard was OVERRUN by squirrels, so i find them to be irritating little pests, not cute little furry things! i live in a condo / apt complex now, so we don’t have a ton of wildlife.. but at my office we have a small pond, and there is SO much wildlife as a result! we have a HERON who hangs out here, along with tons of ducks and canada geese; something that looks like a beaver (but is probably a muskrat or something) who we see swimming around from time to time; turtles, fish, and frogs; and loads of local birds like goldfinches.
We have a ton of black squirrels in our neighborhood, to the point I believe they now outnumber the gray squirrels. We call them “choco” squirrels and they are super cute! We’ll take them over chipmunks any day.
Cheeky squirrels! We’ve got them living in our mailbox! It’s a group mailbox ‘house’ thingy and the other day as I went to open ours a big ole bushy squirrel tail was hanging out. Eeeew!
As for wildlife, you name it, we have it: coyote, fox, deer, turtles, frogs, gorgeous egrets, cranes, etc.
Aww, that turtle is so cute! I wish we had turtles in our yard.
Squirrels are so evil. My parents always complain that they knock over plants and then attack the bird feeder. Still, I feel bad when I see them as roadkill.
Great pictures!