I’ll admit, when I have a bit of time off, I tend to read a bit. Okay. I may pretend to read and spend time sitting around “resting my eyes”, but I start out with good intentions.
While I was off last week, my wife found me a book called Outwitting Squirrels. It was written with a rather tongue in cheek sort of attitude, so I did enjoy it. It wasn’t really meant to be serious. Or was it?
The book is written from the perspective of someone who sets out to feed birds, and, like many of us, ends up feeding squirrels. It is an examination of ways to outwit the crafty squirrel and keep them from eating all your bird seed. All I can say is, good luck with that.
Back in the days when we were allowed to be putting out bird feeders, squirrels were the nemesis. There was a constant battle trying to keep the little critters at bay.
Now we’re not supposed to be putting feeders out because of that nasty little parasite that has been around the area. Whenever temperatures are above freezing, feeders are supposed to be taken down. The parasite keeps popping up, so we are not supposed to put out feeders this time of year, which probably upsets the squirrels.
But as I was reading this book about the struggles against squirrels, I started wondering about chipmunks. The little stripey guys are no stranger to my feeders. Or weren’t, before they had to come down, but there doesn’t seem to be the same hatred for chipmunks.
Part of this may be the chipmunks. If you put up a device to keep chipmunks out of a feeder, they will basically go find something else to eat. Squirrels will spend a great deal of time and energy trying to figure out how to defeat you. And they will. Do not doubt it for one second. But chipmunks, they just move on.
And maybe that’s their secret. They just move on. They don’t put all their energy into defeating us. They just go find other food. Not that a chipmunk can’t clean out a feeder as quick or quicker than a squirrel. Those cute little cheek pouches can hold quite a bit. And once filled, they just scurry off, hide them and come back for more. So they eat the seeds. They just don’t seem to get the hate that squirrels do.
Maybe its because they are nicer about us trying to keep them away from food that is put out for the birds. Or maybe they just have better publicity. Maybe the squirrels are getting all the blame and the chipmunks are scarfing down all the food and blaming those other rodents.
Doesn’t matter. Whatever the reason, it works. I like chipmunks. I’m not a huge squirrel fan, but we have come to a better understanding now that I no longer have a feeder up.
