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Squirrels ain't so bad!
- To: Carolina birds <carolinabirds@acpub.duke.edu>
- Subject: Squirrels ain't so bad!
- From: Clyde Sorenson <clyde_sorenson@ncsu.edu>
- Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2003 11:30:22 -0500
- Delivered-to: pardo@metalab.unc.edu
- Sender: carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu
- User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0
All,
I've been having a running feud (as, I'm sure many of you have) with the 
squirrels usurping my bird feeders. One of the little buggers on a 
platform feeder keeps everyone else off; one on my peanut butter-mix 
feeder usually means the feeder ends up  on the ground, open and empty. 
I learned this morning that there are worse feeder pests out there.
My wife hopped out of bed when the alarm went off at 6:00 and said 
"That's interesting!" I blearily asked what, and she said "Well, there's 
a horse in the backyard. No, there are two horses in the yard." That 
woke me up; I stumbled to the window and saw the two beasts- one 
standing in the pond, another licking sunflower seed from one of my 
platform feeders, and, then, a third (the pregnant mare) alternately 
nuzzling a tube feeder hanging from the back deck and licking up the 
spilled seed. Lee called our neighbor to inform her of the breakout, and 
I went downstairs to help keep them out of harm's way. A bucket of sweet 
oats was alll it took  to get them back in the pasture (the ice storm 
knocked a limb out of a tree, which knocked down the back fence...). 
There wasn't a sunflower seed left in any of the feeders; I'm just glad 
they didn't find the 50 lbs of sunflower in the trash can by the garage 
door! Now to fill all the hoof prints in my ice sogged yard and rake up 
the "horse apples"...
I am getting a strong itch to blast down to the Banks for an all day 
marathon on Saturday, the goal being to see an alcid, any alcid, before 
they all come to their senses and head back north  (all the Atlantic 
species would be lifers). Are there any folks in the Triangle area who 
would be interested in such a venture? I have a 4X4 that can carry 
several passengers and plan on some serious beach scanning. Time 
allowing, I might also make a swing for the black-headed grosbeak, too.
If you might want to go, drop me a line and we'll see if we can sort out 
the logistics.
Take care,
Clyde Sorenson
Clayton and Raleigh, NC
clyde_sorenson@ncsu.edu