A few weeks ago I invested in a new bird feeder. An adorable cedar-wood feeder fashioned like a lighthouse, suiting our backyard nautical theme. I filled it with sunflower seed meat, a special favorite of the goldfinch that have nested in one of the trees in our yard, and amused myself watching several species of songbird partaking in the delicacies it offered.
About a week after it was installed, I noticed someone new was frequenting the feeder. A squirrel. We've never had squirrels in our neighborhood before. There is nothing here to attract them. I've seen them down the road, mostly in areas where some kind of nut-tree is growing. (Hickory, Black Walnut, etc.)
But word must've gotten out that I had just hung a brand-new bird feeder full of sunflower meat. Because there he/she was, perched precariously on the edge of a feeder designed for very small songbirds, gorging him/herself.
"Would you like to borrow my pellet gun?" dh asked. I declined. It was a cute little squirrel. Just one more of God's hungry creatures, and I had plenty of seed to go around.
The feeder holes were equipped with black plastic caps with a smaller hole, allowing only a small amount of seed to be dispensed at one time. This, evidently, was not to the squirrel's liking. After inspecting the feeder after it's first visit, I noticed one of the caps had been severly gnawed by said squirrel. A suddenly not-so-cute squirrel.
Monday evening, dh was talking on the phone and looking out the kitchen window, when he stopped mid-conversation and told me, "Your birdfeeder just hit the ground....the squirrel was on it again." Grrrrr! Stupid rodent! How on earth had it managed to knock the feeder out of the tree?
I went out to re-hang the feeder and inspect for damage. It was destroyed. Not by the fall. By the squirrel. He'd completed his task of removing the black cap from one of the feeder holes. But did he stop there? No. Acquiring an unlimited amount of seed hadn't been good enough for the greedy little bastard. It had been hard at work, now enlarging the hole in the plexiglass itself. The previously one-inch hole had been enlarged to about three inches. I think it was planning on turning the feeder into a condo, the destructive little m.f'er.
But inside the feeder, it had encountered an obstacle. There was a 1/4" thick rope running from bottom to top, keeping feeder and lid intact and allowing it to hang. Squirrel didn't like the rope in the center of it's new living quarters, so it chewed through it. Thus, feeder and squirrel hit the ground. The feeder was unsalvagable. The squirrel? Dead meat if I ever see it again.
Dh: "So........would you like to borrow my pellet gun now? You can sit in the hottub and stake him out."
If you ask me, that sounds like a very pleasant way to spend an evening.
Anyone have a good recipe for preparing squirrel? 
Happy blogging.
pw
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