Hey, I like squirrels, they are industrious, tenacious, barely affected by gravity. But the little buggers are eroding my pathway with their theivery.
We have a couple bird feeders and water bowls in the back yard for the critters. Our yard is a pretty busy place, with lots of visitors. About a year ago one squirrel in particular started taking rocks from our pathway by the garage. Its 40 mm rainbow rock.
I think that particular squirrel is long gone; the bobcat cleared out the local population at one point last year. Now we have about 6 regular squirrel visitors who are all picking through the rocks, choosing a good candidate, nibbling on it in that spin it around in their paws squirrel thing. They then scamper off, only to return in 5 minutes to take another one.
They still raid the bird feeders, check the lawn carefully for dropped goodies, grab crab apples sometimes and follow other foraging behaviors. They chase each other around and one squirrel will not even have left the yard with his rock before another is picking out his.
My neighbour is picking rocks out of his lawn constantly.
We have accepted that our pathway is likely doomed.
The squirrels will win in the end - they always do - but it might be fun to pit your intellectual resources against their tenacity for a few rounds. Is there a non-poisonous way to make the rocks taste bad, I wonder?
In my experience squirrels are jerks. They have no boundaries and chitter curse words at you for nothing. They think nothing of coming straight in my garage and eating cat food, bird seed, half a peanut butter sammich left by a grandkid. And cussing at you if you catch them in the act.
We have pecan trees. Plenty of acorn trees. But, nooooooo. They must have the purchased food.
Before we started feeding the birds, they used to eat a lot of crab apples. Not fall crab apples, dried out fermented spring crab apples. These are pretty good crab apples, not sour, very sweet - when fresh. A little mealy bit better than rocks you would think, but no, they nibble on one apple then steal 20 rocks.
Quite right. Back in my New Hampshire days, my parents hung a bird feeder from a backyard tree branch. Of course, the squirrels devoured all the birdseed almost as soon as it was put out.
So, my dad placed the birdfeeder atop a long metal pole placed as far as possible from the trees. The squirrel-devils simply scampered up the pole to enjoy their feast.
Next, my dad greased the pole with Vaseline. That temporarily produced a bit of entertainment, as the squirrels took a running jump, scrambled as far up the pole as momentum would take them … and slid back down. But of course, they quickly wore off all the Vaseline, and it was back to devouring birdseed in no time.
Next, my dad strung the birdfeeder on fishing line attached to two trees. Within a day or two, the squirrels rivaled Phillipe Petit in their ability to tightrope walk across the fishing line to enjoy their birdseed morsels.
My dad then took two LPs and threaded them on either side of the feeder, so that at the end of their trip across the line, the squirrels were met with a barrier too big to scramble over. No matter. They simply climbed the nearest trees and dive-bombed the feeder from the sky.
I’ve mentioned before that I’m putting out wet and dry food on my deck for a neighborhood cat. I always took in the uneaten dry food before nightfall ever since I found out that the reason the bowl was always empty in the morning was due to raiding raccoons. A few months ago the neighborhood squirrels found out about the free food, so now I take the bowls in after the cat has been by, which he usually does shortly after I put it out. Sometimes if I don’t do it soon enough I will find the bowl of dry food tipped over with half of the contents scattered around the deck.
And in the afternoon there will be squirrels on my deck, occasionally looking through the window accusingly at me.
I want to protest against your insinuations! Conversely here is a friendly squirrel who brings a guy a piece of pizza and leaves it in his planter for him.
My dad fought the same battle. Mounted the bird feeder on a pole, placed the pole away from trees, trimmed branches, greased the pole, etc. He finally got REALLY pissed and punched a hole in the middle of a metal trash can lid and mounted it on the pole beneath the feeder.
That fixed the problem, although the squirrels kept trying. And loudly bitching about it.
I’ve had excellent luck with this bird feeder. I’m on my second one, and have used one of them for more than a decade. It holds a lot of food, it’s sized to be perfect for cardinals, and to be a little uncomfortable for a lot of the larger birds that might strip a feeder, and the squirrels can’t get at the food.
Mine hangs from a branch of an oak tree, and there’s nothing especially close for squirrels to jump from. Sometimes, when it snows, they can get enough grip on the snow to get to the food. And when they are really hungry, they’ll jump on the thing repeatedly to knock a little seed to the ground. But they don’t get much that way, and there’s still plenty for the birds.
Squirrels are mostly omnivorous - they will for example happily raid bird nests for eggs and chicks. I’ve seen one munching on a road-killed adult American robin like it was an ear of corn.
.