I have a good seed bird feeder and I love the birds. Of course the squirrels like to hit it. (We call them the man from SADL–Squirrel Anti-Defamation League.)
So I throw a handful of raw in the shell peanuts out to the yard every other day. We’d been out of town, so they’d weren’t used to it. I had to yell at one sitting on top of the feeder.
Is that healthy enough? (when I was doing it before we were out of town, they never hit the feeder).
Should I do corn or sunflower seeds? I really do enjoy watching them scurry around in general.
I like 'em. They’re actually really friendly and will eat out of your hand. A rare few will let you pet them. I would not however reccomend either of these practices as while it’s rare they can carry rabies and, well, you really don’t want that.
We have squirrels. I don’t think anyone actively feeds them, but they stick around and eat garbage and people’s plants.
For many years now, we have had squirrels nesting in our roof. We keep fixing their holes, and then they make new holes and move in again. They make lots of noise and keep us up at night. When the squirrels have finished living in the roof holes, starlings move into the squirrel holes.
I saved four baby squirrels from near death last week. My dad found them in his yard and, given the circumstances of their presence, he thinks someone dumped them into the yard from a passing car. They were clearly doing poorly – my dad wanted to leave them to die, and I know they’re pests, but I got freaked out thinking about the painful death from starvation they’d suffer, and the thought of my dad having to dispose of four squirrel corpses in the morning.
I had to call 4-5 rescue organizations before I got a response, and I ended up taking them to a woman who works with wildlife rescue and fosters animals in her house. She had little boxes of baby squirrels all over her dining room, and when she took my squirrels, she said they were very dehydrated and had been separated from their mother for quite a while. But they were alive and responsive when she started feeding them, so that made me feel good. When they get stronger, she’ll release them in a large forest in the north part of the county.
We have one that hangs upside down to get grape jelly from the oriole feeder. We like watching them, especially when Sadie the Dog is outside. The squirrel runs around the tree trunk, Sadie runs around after it, seems like they’re both having fun. Then it runs up on a branch and chatters at us.
Would probably feel differently if one of them got into the attic, but so far, so good.
I’d rather have a squirrel in the yard than a raccoon or possum or groundhog.
What was that show (from England?) that had squirrels navigating ever more elaborate obstacles in order to reach a feeder? They kept figuring them out, and some were pretty complicated. It was a few years back, and really entertaining.
If I properly grok the OP’s question, this answer will make sense. (If not, well…)
The peanuts are good. The tree-rats love them and most birds won’t/can’t mess with them. They also love walnuts, and some dried feed corn will please them no end. Sunflower seeds (large kind) are of limited interest to most feeder bird congregations and they will also make for happy skwoyels. Whatever offerings you leave for the squirrels, they will likely still be hard to distract from the birdseed. But at least if they have ample easy feed, they won’t eat too many birds.
Hint: if you really want to ingratiate yourself to the critters, drive a stick in the ground around/near the feeder and slather it with peanut butter once a day or so. Also, they make a good gravy if you 3 into a crock pot all day with some cream of mushroom concentrated soup.
We don’t have squirrels here in Israel, so to me, they’re exotic animals that you see when you travel abroad. I like them a lot, and my wife absolutely *loves *them. She has this little song she sings whenever she sees one. It goes something like this:
Also, I associate them with my early childhood in Manhattan, when I used to spend a lot of time chasing them around Washington Square Park. So they’re a good trigger for happy memories.
When I lived in MD, I had a house on a postage stamp lot (very small). Most of the houses on my block had fences along the front yard/road. One summer, there was a squirrel that loved to race cars down the street. He raced me just about every day (all summer long) as I left for work.
He would hop onto the fence of the next door neighbor, and run full blast down the top of the fence line, even hopping over the gates, to the end of the block. If I slowed to a stop, he slowed to a stop to wait for me to go again. I’m amazed that I never hit any of the cars parked along the street because I was paying far too much attention to this silly squirrel instead of where I was driving.
Thank you for your input!