Squirrel in a bin – Clitheroe Castle
We had quite a lot of interesting bird and animal behaviour in the garden in the last few weeks – the regular appearance of greenfinches and goldfinches in the garden after a winter absence, the long-tailed tit that stared in at me, the squirrel eating samphire and, most notably, a rat chasing a squirrel. It was a small rat and the squirrel was quite a bit bigger, but it sill ran off. The rat tried to follow it into a shrub but the squirrel was up and away well before the rat could make a start.
I don’t like rats. I particularly don’t like rats when they come into our garden under the fence from other garden. We keep our garden as clear as we can from excess bird food and it annoys me that other people clearly don’t. Unfortunately we can’t keep it clean 100% of the time, even though we only feed modest amounts on the ground. If rats come out in daylight, they will find food before the birds have finished it. I say rats, there are two of them as far as we can see. We aren’t exactly overrun with them, , but we don’t want more so we have to act.
Squirrel at Rufford
The trap I bought, and baited with delicious peanut butter has failed to tempt them. Spreading chopped chillies on the ground failed to stop them, mainly because the pigeons ate the chillies before they could do any good.
Today, I have netting arriving and we will be attempting to block the route under the fence.
Other choices include ultrasonic devices, and strongly scented oils. I’m trying to avoid poisons (including baking soda variations), and the obvious cure – stopping feeding the birds.
I could also learn to live with rats, but years of keeping poultry has conditioned me to get rid of them. Same goes for the years of being warned of rat-borne disease.
No pictures of rats, so I went with squirrels.
