Guest Blogger, Dr. No More Squirrels
(Photos by Dr. NMS)
Much of my time and energy has been spent battling a 1-pound enemy – the gray squirrel. I love feeding and watching birds, but with a neighborhood full of acorn-bearing oak trees I feel no guilt at all at not wanting to pay for bird food and letting the squirrels eat it. Through trial and error, I have found how to place all our feeders so that they are always out of the reach of squirrels. Almost always. Every few months a new guy shows up; a determined daredevil squirrel who figures out how to slide 20 feet down the string holding a feeder to get to the mother lode.
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- A variety of feeders for the birds.
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- the “raiders” jump through hoops to get to the feeders.
When that happens, it’s time for an involuntary relocation.
This was the case on a frigid January morning here in Minneapolis. My live trap was set and within minutes I heard it snap shut. But what I then saw was a shock. The squirrel was trapped all right, but sitting next to the trap was an immature red-tailed hawk! She hopped onto the trap and all around it, trying to get at what she thought would be an easy breakfast.
Minutes later, she gave up and flew to a nearby perch to contemplate how she had been beaten by a 1-pound ball of gray fur.
I knew exactly how she felt.
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- This immature red-tail hawk tries to figure out how to get the squirrel.
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- Landing on the trap
