Clever little fellas!

I like squirrels. The more I see of them, the more I like them. They have personalities and they are smart. At the same time, there’s a feeling growing inside me that they know too much and don’t let on.

The RSPB website suggested mixing peanuts with chili powder to keep squirrels away from the feeder. They will eat everything when you’re not looking and most of it when you are. So, I’ve started some mild chemical warfare with my friendly rodents. My efforts to train them by turning a low powered power washer at them failed, as did leaving monkey nuts out for them. What I have decided to do is leave the block feeder alone. This is mainly because the chili didn’t have the same effect. This left the squirrels with two good sources of food from me. This wasn’t enough for them!

This block feeder in question isn’t the most robust of things. But what it is is metal covered in plastic and this means that it can’t be eaten through. A human could easily open it – and so can a squirrel, given a few months to work it out. Once they’ve done that, one of them was spotted walking away with an energy -filled suet block, which I let the non gender specific thing have – for the final time!

My response to this break in and theft was to lock the cage with a big, thick cable tie. But once this has been worked out, it was easily eaten through. This showed intelligence and I needed to set a new challenge. This new device was a long shoelace. In order to make it easy for me, I tied the lace in several bows, just like in a shoe. The question became how long this would keep the little critters out. And the answer is not very long. All in all, they took about a week. From where I was sitting, I could see one of them untying the bows. Nothing is safe!

If I need to, there is the option of using a lock. This is overkill just to keep squirrels out, but it might come to that. For the moment I’m waiting to see if they can untie knots. If they can’t they’ll gnaw their way through and steal all of the tasty food.

So when you see a grey squirrel, be nice to it. Some day, they’ll be our lords and masters.