Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Kinda squirrelly

For a couple of days last week, we here in the District They Call Columbia practically had short-sleeve weather. Friday in particular, we almost hit 70°. And then Saturday we were back into the barely double digits.

What this respite meant for my back yard was that, for one all-too-brief period, the birds took 48 hours to empty the Fine Tunes feeder. Since then we’ve been back to the 24-hour cycle.

But what’s interesting to me is the squirrel behavior. Over the weekend one squirrel (I assume it’s one—I suppose it could be more than one, but since I can’t tell one squirrel from another, I’m going to go with just one) started…eying my living room with an unhealthy interest, and climbing the sliding glass door.

Technically, it’s climbing the rubber gasket at the edge of the door, and occasionally scurrying across the screen door. Viz:





It runs up, looks around, sees no change from the last time it climbed up, and then eventually retruns to earth.

It’s also tried climbing the pole to the feeders, rediscovering the torpedo baffle that still foils its marauding intent. I’m glad, because I just ordered my second 15-pound sack of Fine Tunes from Amazon, and if those little furry vacuum cleaners got a direct line to the seed, I just couldn’t afford it.




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