Tag Archives: squirrels

Julia versus The Squirrels

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Squirrel in MENCAP gardens, Wilford

You probably remember we were having trouble with squirrels on the bird feeders.  Well, we tried a few things. We tried shooing them off, we tried altering the way we hung the feeders and we tried lavender oil. They all seemed to help, but with up to four squirrels (identified by size and colour) including several visits from two at a time, we were having to try something new all the time.

We did, however, have a good result with the rats – blocking the holes under the fence, spreading lavender oil and keeping the area cleared of surplus food every night seems to have kept the rats away.  To be fair, we were keeping the area clear of surplus food anyway, as that’s a basic anti-rat precaution.

Squirrel at Rufford

So, what next for the squirrels? We moved on to mixing spice powders with the seeds. It worked a bit, but we were still being visited, birds were being scared off and large amounts of seed were being snaffled. We tried apples as a diversion/replacement, putting sections of apple out for them on the fence. Again, the results were moderate. They tended to eat the apples first, but still moved on to the seed, where, if not chased away, they would consume large amounts of seed.

It became obvious that we needed to get more serious. Did we go for a more secure feeder, move the feeder, or escalate the deterrent? Everything so far had tended to work for a while, but they are clever and persistent creatures and seem to work round most things.  We don’t want to get rid of them, just keep them down to a reasonable level.

The birds seem to like the feeders where they are, as do we, so we don’t want to move them. We have a secure feeder in the shed, but we don’t want to prevent them feeding, just limit them. Surely, I said to her (neatly moving the responsibility to her), a woman with two degrees and a post-graduate diploma isn’t going to let a small furry creature with a brain the size of a walnut outwit her. She looked at me, and seemed on the edge of saying something sarcastic . . .

 

After more reading, she came up with the idea of Tabasco sauce.  She applies it to the perches and feeder holes and the squirrels, after a quick feed, tend to leave. This will happen for a couple of days before the effect seems to wear off, but a quick sprinkle soon renews it. We don’t, anyway, want to drive them away completely. just limit them. This seems to do the trick and they are not the constant visitors they once were, though they do visit most days, normally towards the end of the day. It is, I think, a fair compromise. We are happy to spare them some food as long as they don’t monopolise the feeders.

 

A Squirrel and a Sail Tail

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I frequently forget about notable parts of the day and write a post which is accurate, in that all the events described did occur on that day. However, it isn’t accurate as a reflection of the total day. I did that in my last post. I did do all the cookery described, but I did other things and other things happened.

One of the most notable events was the one referred to in the title.

One of the squirrels was, as usual, hanging upside down struggling to get at the sunflower hearts. It slipped a couple of times and dropped to the feeding pans lower down. As I watched, it positioned itself again and at that moment, the blustery weather took a hand with a strong, sustained gust of wind that caught the squirrels tail and almost pulled it from its perch. For a moment it hung on by the tips of its claws, them managed to get a secure grip and reposition itself. For a moment I thought I was going to see a squirrel snatched away by the wind and blown over the garden wall. I didn’t, but it was funny while it lasted. It was probably less funny for the squirrel, but it has several choices available apart from taking seed from the feeder so I have no sympathy.

 

Today, having discovered a couple of mouldy crumpets in a packet (they were a couple of days past their “best by” date), Julia decided to cut them up to feed the birds. Some of you will, I know be in shock at this idea. You are probably right, once the packet has a little mould in it, the sensible thing to do is to throw them away. I’m sure the RSPB would agree. On the other hand, some of you, like me, will be aghast at the idea of feeding perfectly good crumpets to the birds. I would have trimmed the mouldy bits off and eaten them. I know people bang on about mould being bad for you, but we eat Stilton and Quorn. Stilton is mouldy cheese, and Quorn, as far as I can tell, is 100% mould. Anyway, health and wellbeing concerns set aside, we are all, I believe, going to eat a pound of dirt before we die.

I will never feed crumpets to the birds again. The pigeons, who usually go for the bread, had a go but were generally not enthusiastic. The magpie, in contrast filled its beak and headed off somewhere. The robin pounced on the smaller crumbs. But basically, we were left with quite a lot fo crumpet scattered round the garden by birds that were lukewarm about them. Even medium-sized bits weren’t taken with gusto. I think it’s the texture – they just don’t break up like bread. At least it wasn’t as bad as the time we tried pasta.

Must Work Harder . . .

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Teasel

It’s been a day of moderate effort and I’m hoping to pick up the pace a little in the coming days.

Success, in my case at least, isn’t built on skill, charm or inspiration, it’s built on work rate, and that’s what has been missing for the last few months. Yes, I’ve been busy moving house and writing for the Numismatic Society Facebook page, but I’ve also allowed myself to use it as an excuse for laziness. This was exposed with the last set of submissions. I was lucky to get away with that like I did. Finding and reanimating old poems, and writing some of them just minutes before the submission deadline is not a sustainable model.

But enough of that. It looks like I’ll have six out of nine accepted, possibly seven, so that’s good so far. I doubt my average will look that good by the end of the year.

Dunnock

I have searched through looking for extra places to submit work and found four more. Three have 100% records of rejecting me and I’ve never tried one of them. We will have to see how it goes. My average will undoubtedly plunge but I said 100 submissions was the target, so I must do eight or nine a month to get there.

Part of the problem is that several online journals are cutting back. Two that were monthly are now cut back to four and six times a year. I sympathise, as monthly must be hard work, but it does make it harder to find places for 100 submissions.

The squirrels, meanwhile, are finding it harder to access the bird food. They can still manage to get too it, but they can’t feed in a sustained manner as they tend to slip more they are now at full stretch. After they have fallen off a few times they tend to eat bread from the floor feeder then wander away. It’s about in balance, though I’m going to save up for some better feeders with anti-squirrel cages. We added a new species of bird to the record today, though nothing exciting – just a white dove from the small flock someone seems to keep round here. Still, it’s nice to break the monotony.

Robin on feeder

For tea we tried Quorn sausages as my sister came round to tea. They were quite good and when paired with onion gravy and mustard mash (plus sweetcorn and green beans) made a very acceptable substitute for meaty sausages. I may start using them on a regular basis as they are probably better for me than proper sausages. They are definitely no worse than the budget supermarket sausages available these days (which seem to get worse and worse). It looks like we will buy these regularly and only get meat sausages when we happen to be near a proper old-fashioned butcher.

A struggling squirrel

Catching Up

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I think my last report was nine submissions, one rejection and one acceptance. It’s now one rejection, four acceptances and one where I have made the alterations the editor asked for, so, with luck, that should be another acceptance. Not a bad start to the year. It just goes to show there’s a very narrow psychological line between success and failure. One patronising rejection was, I admit, enough to make me rethink my writing life. A few acceptances by editors I like restored some balance, and the one today was the icing on the cake. It was from an editor with a prolific high quality output and an acceptance from him always feels like a validation.

Yesterday I used my new slow cooker to produce a vegetable stew. It’s new to me, given by one of our old neighbours. We used to have one, and used it quite a lot until it melted. We were always short of space in the old kitchen and I used to stand it on the hob. This worked well until the day that Julia, thinking of other things, turned the hob on without noticing the slow cooker standing there.

I doubt I’ll use it to produce vegetable stew again as it’s just as easy to do it in a pan on the hob, The pan/hob method is quicker, doesn’t need preparing in advance and only needs cooking for thirty minutes, not 4-6 hours. I will, however, try some other recipes, as I know I liked using it before. My memory is just too bad to recall any of the recipes, apart from pulled pork. But as I always found pulled pork to be disappointing, I doubt I’ll try that again. Somehow, the idea is always better than the reality.

There seem to be plenty of other slow cooker stew recipes so a few weeks of experimentation seem called for. I still have gingerbread men to make. Julia bought me a kit and the ingredients for Christmas, but we had, as usual, so many biscuits given us, that we have only just finished them.  I also want to make peppermint creams for Valentine’s Day, and am already telling Julia that a handmade present is worth so much more than one bought from a shop. She seems suspicious . . .

So much to do – so many excuses!

Photos are more of the squirrelbatics – we added spice to the seed. It put the squirrels off for almost two days. Not enough? Not strong enough? Or are they just not as bothered as the internet suggests?

I’m going to have my own feeder built by an agricultural engi9neer, I think. If I just hang the feeders a few inches further away that should do the trick.

Travels and Birds

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Pied Wagtail

Today’s trip used underpasses and bridges and cycle tracks and took us to the local post office and the shopping centre. We posted a letter to insure the scooter and then looked at the range of shops available. I resisted the temptation to look in the charity shops and Julia bought some Gregg’s vegan sausage rolls for the freezer. I can’t tell the difference between the normal and the vegan varieties, and am convinced that rather than being a tribute to the vegan variety, it is an indictment of the quality of meat in the standard version. It was a bit like being on a rehabilitation course – first find a Post Office . . .

Rook

We saw the first crocuses of our year and I was able to take some bird photographs. Although it’s a built-up area, the first bird I photographed was a rook, normally a farmland bird. It was stalking the area outside the shops and picking at some food someone had dropped.  Sorry to be so vague, but it was difficult to tell what it was. Normally you would expect a crow to be doing this. Rooks are part of the same family but you don’t usually see them acting as urban scavengers.

Rook again

The second bird was a pied wagtail. This wasn’t a surprise as they are always linked with shopping areas and car parks in  my mind. They like the warmth and supposedly feed off bits of broken insect that fall from the cars. I’m not sure how accurate that is, as I’m not sure cars kill many insects these days, due to the presence of fewer insects and better aerodynamics. In the old days a drive in the summer countryside would result in a car festooned in insect body parts. This is not the case these days.

Pied Wagtail

The third bird shot is a collared dove. They erupted from Europe in the 1950s – reaching the UK in 1953b and first breeding in 1956. They were still unusual when I was young, but are now regarded as common garden birds.  They frequently visit our garden.

Collared Dove

Not far from home we passed by some houses that had large mature trees planted on the land just beyond their garden fences. This seemed to result in better bird life, though at the cost of some worry about falling trees. One of them had a big group of sparrows and some starlings round their feeders. We haven’t seen either species in or garden yet. I’m not 100% sure that I’m bothered about this as they can both be a bit overpowering.

On our return home we saw the kite overhead again and the squirrel on the feeder. It’s having to work hard for the seed these days, so we are letting it feed for a while. When we fill up the feeders we will probably add spice as a deterrent.

Squirrel

Squirrel again

 

 

Birdwatch and War with the Squirrels

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Long-tailed Tit

The results are in for my portion of the Big Garden Birdwatch. By the parameters used in the count (you enter the largest number of birds of a species seen at a time) I recorded 24 birds against a national average of 28. I probably undercounted the tits, because they will only visit the feeders in ones and twos, though there are others lurking in the bushes. However, I always feel it’s better to err on the conservative side.

Wood Pigeon

 

Here are the numbers.

Great Tit – 4
Wood Pigeon – 4
Long-tailed Tit – 3
Blackbird – 2
Robin – 2
Jackdaw – 2
Blue Tit – 2
Dunnock – 2
Magpie – 2
Blackcap – 1

Blackcap

The Blackcap is an “Unusual Bird Spot” as they ranked 31 out of 80 last year. It’s not a bad selection.  We have no House Sparrows, which are the Number One bird at the moment, and we have no Starlings, but I’m not complaining.  Sparrows tend to take over and Starlings just descend in large groups and force everything else away, so I’m not particularly bothered. I do, however, miss the goldfinches we used to get in profusion..

As it was, we had squirrel trouble for most of the last twenty minutes of the hour and they drove most of the birds away. My anti-squirrel campaign has been so successful that we now have two who visit together. They are interesting and acrobatic and this pair don’t do a lot of damage (as some of my previous squirrel adversaries have done), but they do need a lot of food compared to a bird and they do stop birds visiting.

Dunnock

We now have our peppermint oil, which we will be spraying round to deter rats, and will have to see if it deters squirrels too. If not, it looks like we will have to move on to chilli and more robust measures. Knocking on windows, sending Julia out and rearranging the feeders has, so far, failed to achieve any lasting deterrence.

Squirrels, Squirrels and more Squirrels . . .

Pictures are all from the Garden Birdwatch hour. The light wasn’t very good – the garden is much shadier than I realised and apart from that, my bird photography skills have deteriorated and they aren’t very good.

Great Tit

 

 

Feed the Birds & Happy New Year to You All

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Squirrel in a bin – Clitheroe Castle

Today provided  a lesson in squirrel ingenuity as it dangled by its back feet to gorge on sunflower hearts. It is, as you have to remind yourself, all part of life’s rich pageant. I don’t actually mind feeding squirrels in moderation, but I do mind that they will spend the spring trying to break into nests and take the eggs and chicks.

I’m thinking that a little strategically placed chilli might make it move on to a neighbouring garden. This will allow nature to carry on, but save me money and allow the birds unrestricted access to the feeders.

The pigeon spent some time on the floor picking up spilled seed – one of things the squirrel is good at – there’s a constant fall of seed as it eats from the feeder. It was interesting to see, as we have a floor feeding station located near the feeder, which it seemed to ignore. Eventually it realised the feeder was there and cleared it. We don’t put much out on the ground so we don’t encourage rats, so it was good to see it cleared. The other birds I think of as ground feeders (robins, dunnocks and blackbirds) are either trying their luck on the hanging feeders or picking up from the spillage. Something else to consider.

Grey Squirrel

My sister is coming round for New Year and I am thinking of ideas for snacks. The subject of cheese and pineapple came up. Then pineapple on pizza. I’ve never understood why people get so worked up about pineapple on pizza. It’s not like pizza hasn’t already been made to suffer a vast number of indignities. I like it. I also think anything that gets more fruit and more variety in the average diet is a good thing.

So I ordered pineapple on the weekly shopping. I also ordered cocktail sticks and a block of moderately priced cheese. The cocktail sticks, I was told, were unavailable. Then the cheese became unavailable. I was able to reorder slightly different ones. They became unavailable. I currently have kebab skewers coming and will use cheese I already have. What was going to the that childhood favourite – cheese and pineapple on sticks – has become cheese and pineapple kebabs. I assume that New Year is a busy time for purveyors of cocktail sticks.

Squirrel at Rufford

In fiction they have all sorts of food problems, including cannibalism, but you very rarely seem to see a plot that hinges on the availability of cocktail sticks.

Time to go now. I may be busy tomorrow, so Happy New Year to you all.

The squirrel in the bin – Clitheroe

Oh Dear, Posted and Forgot the Title

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Squirrel on bird table (and fly on squirrel)

I just fell asleep during Forged in Fire and woke up to someone talking about a disaster. Fortunately I had been sleeping with the fire on and a hot water bottle tucked in the blankets I had on my lap so I was quite flexible. I woke, made sandwiches and sat to check the comments on my blog.

I really ought to go to bed, but can never resist the temptation to look at the blog after making sandwiches.

Tonight, after my last blog post, I dozed and ate fish fingers with peas and potato wedges. It’s not a life of great style and elegance, but it needs living and I am probably the best person for it.

Then I did the shopping order for next week and dozed again whilst watching TV.

Tomorrow is only  half day so I don’t really need sandwiches, but Julia does. All I need to do is last until lunch and them I can come home and do things. Or, I can come home and doze in front of the fire.

Squirrel in a bin – Clitheroe Castle

There really is very little difference between my winter routine and hibernation. Once I retire I must think this through. In many ways it would be simpler just to give in and hibernate. However, I suppose that I will end up imitating the grey squirrel. They don’t hibernate, but they do sleep a lot. So I will sleep a lot and send in food orders via the internet that consist mainly of nuts. When relatives, concerned by getting no answer from me, eventually contact the emergency services they will find me nestled in a bed filled with dried leaves and with a spare room filled with packets of nuts.

That reminds me, I promised two cousins that I would do things this year. One is connected to family history and one to current family members. I have done neither, on a account of me being ill for the last three months. And being lazy and forgetful. I had better write to them to remind them I am alive and , belatedly, doing things. Strangely, they are both doctors, so |I will probably be bombarded with advice about health. I may leave the letters until next week. There’s only so much health advice a man needs and I am getting enough from my own doctors at the moment. It’s strange. You don’t see a doctor for years, then then, as so0on as you get something interesting, a group of them comes along at the same time . . .

Squirrel stealing bird food

This is either Part 2 of yesterday, or Part 1 of today. Not sure which.