Maquinna's Poop du Jour

The Squirrel Relocation Program

I guess I always entertained a casual interest in birds, and usually put up some kind of feeder for them near the house. Since moving to New England, however, my interest in birds has escalated, and so have the number and kinds of feeders I am maintaining to attract them.

There are many birds which are common here but with which I never grew up, so to me they are still a novelty. Titmice and cardinals were some of the first new birds I got to know. The ubiquitous winter juncos clearly illustrate how regional populations can have quite different markings. Here they have a tendency to be a little more varied in their grey and black tones along their backs and sides with white underbellies; back home they are virtually solid black on top and snow white underneath.

With birds, inevitably, come squirrels. For nearly a year after moving in with Craig I enjoyed watching the birds at the feeders without worry about squirrels; the house is plunked in the middle of a field with only a few trees around it, and a squirrel would have to cross a great deal of open ground to get to it. I suppose it took them a while to figure out that there was enough food to be had up here to be sufficiently tempted.

I have nothing against squirrels. OK, I take that back. The grey ones are noxious little tree rats whose only claim to cuteness lies in their bushy tails. They bully other native squirrels and chipmunks out of their territories and can create a hell of a mess if they decide to winter in your attic. And never mind what they can do to your bird feeders and nesting boxes. They will quickly empty a feeder if they can, and will chew open wooden birdhouses to get to the eggs inside. These are creatures only to be tolerated from afar, well in the bush where they belong.

Last fall I saw the first one. It scampered up the hickory tree near the barn. Little devil, I thought. He was joined shortly by a second, then a third. Within days my big hopper feeder was laying on the ground, not only completely emptied but with a broken lid that required gorilla glue to repair.

At first we put the Have-a-Heart trap out with a handful of seed in it, since that was what they were after in the first place. Several juncos managed to trip it in turn, and nearly died of heart attacks until they were relased. It took weeks before one of the squirrels took the bait, and only after I let the feeders get empty so they had nothing else to go for. We talked to Craig's aunt, a seasoned squirrel trapper who had even taken to spray painting their backs so that she knew without a doubt that they were returning to her yard even after being taken a mile away. She said the magic bait was peanut butter. Make little peanut butter sandwiches with crackers, she said, and even put a big fat peanut on top. They can't resist it.

The next squirrel was caught within hours. Like the first, we drove it down to the reservoir about five miles away and released it, where it took off into the woods like a shot. Craig said he had visions of it heading in the opposite direction and getting pasted by a car, but fortunately we didn't have to watch that happen.

The third squirrel laid low for a month. If he was going to the feeders, we didn't see him, and he was careful only to take as much seed as wouldn't be noticed. I began to wonder if he had witnessed the fate of his buddies and had made the pre-emptive strike by getting the hell outta Dodge while he still could. I guess the call of the feeders was just too compelling, though, and there he was the other morning, swinging like an acrobat on a branch of the cherry tree and trying to pull suet out of the cake holder. Time to get the trap out again.

It snowed again last night and the trap was buried this morning. I could see it hadn't been tripped yet so I guess the squirrel decided to ride out the storm in the knotholes of the hickory tree. If he's smart he'll stay there with all the chestnuts he gathered up last fall. His days are numbered.

posted by Maquinna @ 10:06 a.m.