Squirrels are ungrateful

When did the squirrels turn against me?
Only last fall I was using my Father’s Day slingshot to shoot acorns at the neighborhood cats that attempted to dine on squirrel cuisine.
But do I get any gratitude from the backyard rodents? I do not.
Instead, the squirrels are now crowding out the birds at our backyard feeders, pigging out on sunflower seeds.
There are four birdfeeders within view from our kitchen window. Two are mounted on poles and have been proven to be pretty much squirrel-proof.
One of them has spring-loaded perches that close off access to the birdseed when any creature over a certain weight attempts to get a bite to eat. It’s sensitive enough that a mature Blue Jay can trip it and close the door, so the squirrels don’t have a chance.
The other has baffles that have succeeded in doing just that, baffling the squirrels.
But the other two have been targeted in the days since Christmas.
One was a gift — probably another Father’s Day — and is about the size of a desktop globe. There’s a central column that’s filled with seed, but birds have to actually get inside the sphere made of metal wire to get access to lunch.
For a long, long time, it proved squirrel-proof. Then the little rascals figured out how to open the top where the seed goes in.
Last week, as I was eating lunch, a squirrel hung upside down in the column of sunflower seed at the center of the sphere. He, too, was eating lunch. But the nuthatches and chickadees and finches and sparrows weren’t getting their share.
The fourth feeder is one I bought at a benefit auction at John Jay Center for Learning last August. It also looked squirrel-proof. And for much of the fall, that proved to be the case.
Not so now. The squirrels have learned they can jump from a branch on our neighbor’s redbud tree and land on a trellis by our garage. Then they can jump from the trellis and — if their aim is good — land on the new feeder. There, hanging on for dear life, they eat their fill while the birds go hungry.
Obviously, under the circumstances, I’ve had to re-think my alliances. Rather than being the squirrels’ protector, I am now their nemesis.
There’s no point in shooting acorns at them. That would be like throwing more food. So I’ve shifted to small pebbles.
Trouble is, the squirrels are smaller targets than the fat neighborhood cats. And they move more quickly.
Have I actually hit one? Nope. But I’ve come close enough to get their attention, and they now take off the minute I step outside.
Just the same, it has me wondering if I should have let the cats reduce the backyard population last summer when I had a chance.

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