I feel sorry for the squirrels, but what could I do?

Disproportionate Force was mentioned in the news today, or at least I think it was. Not paying too much attention to the news is great. This is the advice been given to young people to avoid anxiety. And I’m pretending to do that as well. All I want is to know when the tanks are rolling up my street and then I’ll have a think about what to do. Good luck to them I say. Once they’ve navigated the potholes they can count themselves lucky they haven’t opened up an inevitable sinkhole. But this isn’t about the news, it’s about me feeling a little bit remorseful.

Watching squirrels outside trying to have a meal on my bird feeders has been fun. After all, they’re animals with character and intelligence. In short, squirrels are great. The problem is that when four of them turn up and terrorise my collony of long tailed tits. There will be a collective noun for them, but stopping to look up details as I go on slows me down. I know that goldfinches are a charm, so that will be good enough for the social LTTs. Terrorise is a stong word to use, but the news is affecting me. Terror is a word used over and over again. It’s the kind of word dictators use to make populations scared of everyything. And believe me, I’m scared of the squirrels.

I’m not so much scared of the little things, it’s just that I don’t want to be responsible if one climbs up a drainpipe and in to a bedroom window where a young child is sleeping. So there was only one thing to do, which was to reach for the hot chilli powder again. And for that I am sorry, but it had to be done.

Watching from my window, it seemed that nothing had changed. Two squirrels returned and one watched the other munch on suet and peanuts from the feeder. The suet is a good filler, but it gives an opportunity to eat around the sprinked chilli that I’d previously added on the last refill. Small handfulls (very small) of chilli spread over the ground and branches had no effect either, but this didn’t last long.

On any other day the greys are jumping from branch to branch and fighting with energy to burn, but on this occassion things were different. Watching two defeated squirrels looking downhearted in their retreat along the top of their fence was a sorry sight. They’ve played in my back yard for almost a year now and now I’ve kicked them out and they won’t know why. The problem was that there were too many of them and something had to be done. I acted tactically and in haste with no strategy and future world squirrel view. If I could send a message to them, it would be for a de-escallation to avoid future hostility that could get out of hand.