Fluff

[caddyman]

Happy Monday, mes enfants, if such a thing is possible.

It seems that we are in the business of paying protection money to squirrels now. When I mentioned them last ()and I never did post the photos), they were still cutesy little fluffy things and how we smiled at their antics. Well, they still are. Unfortunately they are as opportunistic and lazy as they are athletic and hungry.

Not being content merely to find increasingly amusing ways of getting on to the tray bird feeder, they have demolished over the course of the weekend, four fat balls that we put out in the other feeder. I don’t mind them scoffing the peanuts and stuff, but really, the fat balls are supposed to be for the exclusive use of our little feathered friends. We have a couple of bluetits and some chaffinches that regularly visit the garden hoping for food and there is a solitary robin that sits forlornly on its favourite branch on the cherry tree watching wistfully as the furry thugs hog the bird table, demolish the stocks of nuts and scatter the seeds – the bit the robin would like – everywhere. He would also like some of the worms from the fat balls too, I expect, but he’s out of luck for now at least.

The birds do get some of the food, but by and large they are sidelined by the squirrels, which frankly, could feed themselves adequately elsewhere. It’s not so late in the season that food is in short supply.

I know we’ve arrived in the land of the homeowner/gardener when I stop to think that we are indulging ourselves in that age-old game of ‘beat the squirrel’.

Is there a club? Do you have membership cards and decoder rings? Can you send me details?

Comments

[snorkel-maiden.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure about a club, but there is a roaring trade in metal feeders that the little sods can't eat their way through. I have a tubular grid-like metal thing that fits four fat balls; the birds can still get at them fine but the squiggles can't. Also the classic peanut feeder with a cage around it; and my standard seed feeder is glass and metal as they ate through about three plastic ones.

[caffeine-fairy.livejournal.com]

Second the metal feeder thing, we have one called a "Defender" (I know, I know) and it was the only thing which survived Colin the Squirrel and His Mandibles of Doom.

[mathcathy]

We have a gamekeeper who sets traps for them.

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

Better beat the squirrel than combat the cat (a game that is less fun and features more pooh)

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I want the blighters dead, just off the bird feeders!

[mathcathy]

They dig holes which kids can fall in and they scrape the bark off trees which kills them.

[mathcathy]

Don't know - should we?

[ellefurtle.livejournal.com]

I am happy to feed both so long as we can find a way to have the options scattered about so the birds can still get at the food. Squirrels are more fun to watch than birds, but I want to have a bird friendly place. That won't stop me getting a cat of course :)

[ellefurtle.livejournal.com]

I think number control is ok if tree damage gets too bad, but holes in the ground I find irrelevant - you get holes, if you want a bit if nature.

[mathcathy]

I don't consider squirrels to be pests. I was just saying that where i live, there is a gamekeeper who sets traps for them to protect trees and the gardens.

I think you're taking my comments entirely the wrong way.

[changeling72.livejournal.com]

I've heard squirrel pie is all the rage, though I can't vouch for it myself, being a vegetotaller, and all.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

It's all a moot point anyway: there will be no bloodbath engineered to get rid of the squirrels in our garden, thankee very much ;-)

What there will be, if ever we can devise it (and become millionaire celebs in the process for succeeding where the rest of the world has failed), will be a method of feeding the birds so that the squirrels only get a share, not the lot, of the food. The little buggers should be able to get some of their own from elsewhere (of course, they think they are already...).

[snorkel-maiden.livejournal.com]

It won't make any difference- we get ridiculous numbers of birds in our garden :) It helps having totally incompetent cats, of course!

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

Some people here shoot the squirrels, but it's cruel and who wants to dispose of little squirrel corpses? I suppose we can't tell the wildlife, "No no, y'greedy buggers, this is for birds only." All the little critters are hungry.

[littleonionz.livejournal.com]

Would the classic greased pole work d'you think? Long smooth pole, possibly a wooden one sheathed in a paggy drainpipe, nice and long and a wide (too wide for feet grip round pole edge grab) also nice and smooth, pvc mebby?

Naughty little tree rats.

[littleonionz.livejournal.com]

Oh and grease, don't forget the grease.

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

That reminds me of this:

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

Woodpeckers no, Deer yes and I say that as a complete nature fan. the fact is deer are breeding completely out of control in the UK and don't really have predators short of being hit cars or fawns being taken if weak and young. The level of damage they do to trees and hedgerow plants is sufficient that some nature reserves have to take measures to exclude them lest they wreck the balance of other plants and animals with their willy-nilly bark-stripping.


I have to say I'm never a fan of using the idea of things being 'natural' as an argument...it's pretty hard to follow through for very long before it ties itself in knots completely - how does one qualify what is natural and what is not ? Coppiced wood is far more species rich than woodland left to it's own devices but it relies on human intervention is that natural ? What about moorland ? What about cornfields ? Hay meadows ? All these environments either don't exist or are smaller and poorer without constant human intervention, species are adapted to live in them and suffer when they aren't maintained.

If any species follows it's instincts it does what it needs to survive and if their is no outside check it any species with a decent rate of breeding will ultimatley damage itself and its environment (its not just humans that do this despite what some try and claim), that could be termed 'natural' but is it a good thing ? Deer need their numbers keeping down and if people can then use those culled deer as a source of meat and eat less nastily farmed stuff then thats 2 birds with ones stone for me.

In the case of Squirrles, yes humans screwed up introducing the greys but is it a good thing if they wipe out reds ? If culling them protects the reds is that a good or bad thing ?

Sorry Bryan, I've hijacked your LJ...

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

Cool, I wasn't rtying to be provactive (although I usually come across that way) I was justtrying to get an idea of the limits of what you were saying as some people use the word 'natural' in utterly bizarre ways.
I'm just starting out with doing a bit of professional gardening and my speciality is wild/native planting and one of the hardest things to tell people who want 'a wildlife garden' is that doesn't me a low work garden, it usually means the opposite : )

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

Not at all feel free. My garden is *tiny* but I've worked on one for the local children's centre. Two plants I can really recommend are firstly Campions, white or red or both and then the cross pollinate into pink. Easy to grow, unfussy and they are just a moth magnet. The second is Viper's Bugloss which is pretty much teh single best bee attractor you can find, it does like well-drained soil and is one of those annoying biennials (waves fist at biennials) but it is just incredible for bees. Try getting some Self Heal in your lwan too, it's not hard to encourage and has sweet purple flowers.



Let us not speak of cat troubles, we have brilliant insect life but birds...no chance.

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

Oh and did you know there is now a true dwarf Buddleia, great for small gardens and pots. It grows no more than about a metre high, flowers continuously without deadheading and barely self-seeds, it's called 'Blue Chip' I think.

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

Mints and Woundworts are uncontrollable if they escape, I keep mine potted so that they don't swamp the less thuggish wildflowers : )