Tag Archives: squirrels

The Baboon Congress

How Do I Hate Squirrels? Let Me Count the Ways.

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Today’s post comes from Edith.

Jim’s comment “The squirrels around here seem to be unusually pesky” got me thinking about how much I hate squirrels. South Minneapolis squirrels seem to be especially hateable. People who say squirrels are “cute” either are crazy or they haven’t seen the squirrels in my neighborhood.

When I grew vegetables in my yard, it was an endless source of frustration to see tomatoes get almost to the point of perfect ripeness and then find it lying on the driveway with a squirrel bite taken out of it. The thought of eating a tomato that had been handled by one of those rodents deterred me from ever cutting off the bitten part; my compost pile was the only thing that benefitted from the squirrel leavings (and, actually, the compost pile didn’t benefit, either – see below).

I now only grow herbs and fruits and flowers in my yard. Squirrels like to dig in the planter boxes on the front porch or any freshly turned dirt and also do things like eat tulips off stems before they open their blooms. But at least they aren’t eating my food.

One time a squirrel got into my house. I’m not sure how…but you haven’t seen pure craziness until you’ve seen a squirrel dashing around your house at full speed.

We’ve all heard about how squirrels rob bird feeders of the bird food. If you have an open compost pile, to which you add food scraps, in your yard in south Mpls, you are basically operating a free restaurant for squirrels.

151028_001

But the real reason I hate squirrels? They hate me. Here’s proof. Those of you who also live in the city of Mpls know that the big gray garbage bins the city provides us for our trash are pretty tough. But they’re not tough enough for south Mpls squirrels. Our diabolical neighborhood squirrels chewed a squirrel-sized hole in the lid of my trash bin. They would then go inside the bin and enjoy snacks 151028_002(this was before I composted most of my food scraps). Then, I out I came, blissfully unaware of any danger, with a bag of trash to put in the bin. I threw open the lid – and SHAZZZAAAMMM out flew anywhere from one to three squirrels in my face. They ran away, laughing hysterically at my scream, and plotting when they can do that again.

I learned to kick the trash bin several times and then stand back before I lifted the lid. After the squirrels escaped, I gave it another kick, then waited to make sure they were all gone before I carefully lifted the lid and tossed in the bag. But sometimes in my usual spacey way, I would forget to kick – and once again the squirrels would enjoy their dominance over me.

What “cute” object or animal drives you crazy?

 

The Baboon Congress

Orgy on My Patio

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Today’s guest post comes from Clyde in Mankato.

A few years ago my son gave me a book which summarized what we know about behavior of the myriad of American bird species. We know the easily observable, such as nests, eggs, migration. We do not know the more difficult to observe, such as territorialism, cooperativeness, life span, causes of death, and how monogamous various species really are. Studies suggest that, contrary to what is told, most species are not monogamous. When a clutch is analyzed, which ornithologists only rarely do, eggs usually have different fathers, which makes sense for the gene pool but destroys our anthropomorphic images of birds.

To study these behaviors for one species would require many hours of close observation of many individuals to describe the common behaviors.

Despite all the time I have spent in the woods around squirrels and chipmunks, I know little about the domestic life of either species. But for three years I have watched a colony of squirrels by my patio. Squirrels are quick learners, very adept with their forelegs, and have good memories. They have memorized the superhighways, off-ramps, and local roads in the trees, which I can observe in the leafless winter. One squirrel learned to cut the twine holding an ear of corn. I then put small ears of corn in a suet feeder. She became very adept at manipulating the corn to extract kernels, food which is hers and hers alone.

Second pix

Because they have accepted my presence on my patio, I have observed much mating behavior in birds and squirrels in the last three days. The second round of parenting has begun. Yesterday several small birds courted and mated in the trees, and a pair of squirrels tumbled and rolled in the grass a dozen feet from me before consummating their fervor, several times.

Above them a second pair of squirrels courted on a large tree limb, the limb shown in the header photo. One squirrel, male I presume, cornered a second squirrel, female I presume, at the farthest end of the many branches on the limb. They faced each other down for a minute or more. She could have easily dropped three feet to the ground. She did not. Instead she jumped to another branch. He found where that branch joined the tree and backed up to sit there. She leaped to another branch. He back up again. This happened several times until she had backed him up by the ropes, where no more branches grew from the limb.

They stared at each other from eighteen inches apart for another minute. The next courting move was—pun intended—anticlimactic. She ran right over the top of him and into the canopy. He followed in—pun intended—hot pursuit. Go ahead: anthropomorphize this behavior.

If I had the resources and time, I would sit in the great art museums of the world to study the art and to observe the passing humans and their reaction to the art. Fifty years ago I did this in the Chicago Art Institute. Most people’s reaction to most art was indifference.

If you had the time and resources, what would you sit and study, or ponder?