Posted on 05/22/2008 6:05:40 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Just ask Mike “Popcorn Maker” Huckabee...
Somebody just needs to start a “Squirrel & Chips” franchise...
Red Squirrels, Grey/Gray Squirrels... I thought we weren’t suppose to judges based on color.
Really, there is no place in the modern world for this kind of xenophobic thinking.
I will say that a squirrel is a tough fight for a cat. A squirrel tore up my Lab's nose (but died instantly thereafter and was paraded all over the lawn like a gladiator's trophy.) The only cat I know that routinely killed squirrels was my parents' 15 pound Lilac Point Siamese - but she was a stone cold killer, not a wuss like the Siamese in the video.
Unfortunately, the neighbors have cats that found a source of fresh meat. Periodically, I see a tail heading through the tall grasses, and then a return with a mouthful of bird. I run them off (cats) when I can.
I have lots of squirrels, as well, but the cats are too slow, or this is easier! The squirrels just make my dalmation go crazy!
We’ll lend ‘em some red squirrels from the American Midwest. They’re big and tough, and ain’t going to be intimidated by no gray.
In my hometown of Omaha, there are almost exclusively reds. Cross the Missouri River into Council Bluffs, IA and you’ll find blacks. You almost never see the black ones in Omaha. I figure the reds are too big and mean.
;-)
Not to worry. The red squirrels will evolve their way out of it.
In Ontario there are black squirrels.
1. Put your feeders up high if you haven't already.
2. Make sure the feeders have an adequate perch for the birds.
3. Clear low brush and tall grass for about a 10' circle under the base of your feeders.
4. Leave nearby tall bushes and low tree branches intact so that birds have a place to fly with the seeds to crack them open above the reach of the cats.
Those measures keep the birds at our feeders fairly safe from cats -- and the dogs get the squirrels and the chipmunks (and they scare the @!*&*&^ out of the cats). Since they're retrievers they are trained not to crunch up the birdies -- even the ones that hit the windows in the house are brought to me without so much as a feather mussed, and we're able to save about half of them.
Your last observation is the very reason I do little about it. Birds are STUPID (tweetie excepted!)! I don't care for cats, but you have to admit they are good hunters!
I wondered the same thing, and a fellow FReeper said:
Start Here-> HTML Sandbox
Although some birds are monumentally stupid - mallards or chickens for example - some birds are pretty smart. Crows and chickadees seem particularly sharp. Most of the birds that hit our glass are finches, with the occasional tufted titmouse and common thrush. Never seen a chickadee hit the glass.
I figure since I set the table for them near the glass and thus attracted them to the hazard, I need to try to keep them from hitting it - I have suncatchers, ribbons, and so forth in the kitchen windows to give them a fighting chance to slow down and perceive the barrier. Same reason I keep the ground clear under the feeders -- sort of an adjustment for creating the danger in the first place.
I’m told that the black squirrels here are displacing the greys.
“Black Squirrels” are actually melanistic Grey Squirrels who carry a recessive gene that turns their color. This is why you will find the Greys giving birth to one black out of the litter on many occassions. I never saw a melanistic squirrel, however, until I moved to the Bronx.
bflr = bump for later reading
I have noticed a marked increase in the population of Black squirrels in the past twenty years, they are probably 10% of all squirrels I see now. I heard that they are from Germany originally but I am not sure as to the validity of that story.
Bingo. They're only "invasive" species when their undesireable effects outweigh their benefits. I've been in a few conversations in the past year or two where people were wringing their hands and doomsaying over the apparently unexplained demise of numerous beehives. When I've stated that honeybees aren't even native to the American continent and were themselves an, "invasive" species, brought over by early colonists, I'm called a liar.
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