Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for February 23, 2020

We had to put dd in a home about 18 months ago. He’s 96 so it was time. didn’t take long before he started FEEDING the squirrels out his window. We got him a squirrel proof bird feeder last fall

Now the birds are asking if they can plug a heater into that line.

electricity and snow???

I’ve never been able to work up much indignation at squirrels “stealing” the bird seed. For one thing, they’re wild animals who depend on foraging, so what would you expect? And they’re fellow mammals, so maybe they think we’re on their team.

My sister in New Hampshire has problems with unauthorized guests at her bird feeders, except hers are bears. She tried putting the feeders higher using ropes, so the bears learned to cut the ropes with their claws. (I suggested relocating the ropes and leaving one rope suspending a trash can full of bowling balls overhead, but she’s too softhearted.)

You could put the feeder in a cage. If a squirrel gets too fat, it won’t be able to get out.

’Course you could simply grease the pole:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmpeJGlbUCE

I’m smarter than a squirrel, but the squirrel has nothing better to do  than find a way through whatever system I devise. We have capitulated and now use the squirrel equivalent of a rabbit garden which leaves them too fat and happy to leap onto tall bird-feeders in a single bound.

The birds around here look very well fed….. I’d father feed the squirrels.

See today’s STONE SOUP

The bird feeders I like best are two that attach to the windows with suction cups. I did have to remove the screens as the squirrels thought they were ladders. Now they try to jump up once in a while, but it’s mostly just a great variety of birds at the window. I do have two hanging feeders out in the trees, but there is something about how they’re hung that the squirrels haven’t figured out yet. They are metal feeders hung by a three foot metal strap.

Squirrel: a rat with a bushy tail.

I do not brake or swerve for squirrels. I am likely to get into or cause an accident that way. I’ve noticed that if they do run across your path and clear the car, they will reverse course and run back. I know from experience, that they do not do damage to my car. Somebody has to feed the crows. From bird feeder to bird feed.

I do not deliberately run them down, but I do consider it dangerous to try to avoid them.

We had feeders, noticed last year, that they had become hawk feeders.

It might be best if we don’t interfere, as much as we do.

My bigger issue is the hawks and other raptors eating the well fed song birds as they leave the feeder. Oh wait, that is exactly what it is, a Bird FEEDER.

And they don’t even have to be hungry; they simply love a challenge. For squirrels, it’s really all about the journey. They’re wired that way!

Humans might be smart but squirrels are clever. They have skill and all day to work out a problem with the added incentive of survival in the balance. Survival is a strong motivator. Even if the reward is only a sunflower seed.

Squirrels evolve, just like people. Had a feeder on a wire with a grid surround and perches. When squirrels climbed on the grid slid down to cover the holes. Worked ok for 99%, but one was sharper. It would jump hard to the feeder and make it spin so feed flew out the holes, then it would kick off with force making the spin faster. While it was still spinning out feed, squirrel would go to ground and enjoy a knosh. Fortunately for the feed budget, that sharp one did not pass on his genes to the later generations. Have not seen one repeat that sequence since that original disappeared with his hawk buddy.

Give a squirrel a nut; he eats for a day. Teach him to steal from a bird feeder; he eats for a lifetime and moves into your attic and chews on the wires and Christmas decorations.

My favorite anti-squirrel bird feeder not only drops covers over the food holes when the weight of a squirrel in on the perch-ring, the feeder spins until the squirrel lets go!

I thought about using electric fencing to charge the lower half of the pole, and use a wooden shaft in the middle to insulate the feeders

The deer have decimated my wife’s new fruit trees the second year in a row. I checked our bylaws, nothing against electrified concertina wire and an M18A1

If you know anything about electricity the way he has this configured one more panel would make this cartoon great.

Throw some peanuts on the ground and quit stressing.

Inscribed on his tombstone, “Just let me plug this in…”

Google “Squirrel obstacle course”. There is no defense.

Hang feeder on a clothes line, covered with soda bottles, punch hole in bottom and string horizontally fore and aft. They can’t run across the spinning bottles. Then stick corn cobs on a ten penny nail attached to a tree. And, seriously…take a walk.

After trial and error you can stop squirrels. No place above they can jump from to the feeder, careful placement of the feeder on the tree or the yard, squirrel baffles, and weight-loaded feeders to stop the larger birds and squirrels. Raccoons and possums, however, are another matter. The only thing I’ve found that kinda works is Cole’s Flaming Squirrel sauce, a mixture of hot pepper oils. Expensive, but with the cost of bird seed, it’s worth it.

RODENT REVOLUTION!

Well I learned a lot about squirrels from you guys..very interesting. We moved in six years ago; I saw our first squirrel a week ago. I don’t need a bird feeder; humming birds are prevalent and other birds come around. But it turns out we have the world’s largest bird bath— our pool. It was built with a concrete step that sits in an inch of water, so birds come by the flock to stand on that step and bathe. I am sure this was not the intention of the former owners.

I can so relate!! Don’t mind them foraging, but when they manage to figure out how to climb up my greased pole and baffle and then lounge over the top of the feeder….well, let’s just say I remember Caddyshack.

And they do make squirrel proof feeders. However, they are not bear proof.

Where we live in N. Wisconsin, I’ve actually seen people put electric fences around their bird feeders. Not so much for the squirrels, but to keep the bears out.

Makes ya wonder who is the more squirrelly (and to hell with my spell-checker for not knowing that word).

I licked that problem by putting galvanized stove pipe around my feeder posts and waxing it periodically. Don’t worry about the squirrels staving though. The Blue Jays throw seed down to them and all the ground feeding birds.

Bird Feeder deterrents = Lumosity for squirrels.

As long as he thinks to unplug it before trying to fill the feeders. Otherwise the squirrels will feast on what he spills when the jolt sends him flying.

About a year and a half ago, the PBS series Nature had an episode entitled A Squirrel’s Guide to Success. Based on what was presented in that show, anyone trying to thwart a determined squirrel is fighting a losing battle.

I am able to beat the squirrels, a simple inverted cone on the steel rod my feeders hang on. The raccoons however have me beat and are far more destructive. I have given up putting out sunflower seeds for now. They don’t seem to be attracted to the nijer seed which finches like. And suet feeds the woodpeckers and many others.

I love Non Sequitur. But I’m dismayed at this one. It advocates doing harm to wildlife. It may very well give some ideas on how to kill squirrels. Not good and not nice. And not funny or even thought provoking. Bad.

Daddy has obviously NEVER seen squirrels leaping from tree to tree without any fear whatsoever.

Daddy has been corrupted by Danae….

I do believe you’re looking at a spectacular short circuit there.

The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they are going to have some pretty annoying virtues.

My dad did something similar, wired the feeder and plugged it in from the garage when he saw the squirrel. Got to the point where the squirrels would leave when they saw movement through the window. Picture a grown man ducking under the level of the window to avoid being seen by a bunch of rodents.

@KAPUT, Apparently we are NOT in the same team, I don’t raid their pecans and walnut stash, do I ? So NO! we are not in the same team, got that ?

What he’s doing would never work, it would just blow a fuse (or trip a circuit breaker). An electric fence has potential (voltage) to the ground, which you don’t get attaching both leads to the same conductor. Of course if he did that with the barbed wire, he would kill any birds that touched the wire while getting seeds that have fallen to the ground.

Once upon a time, people looked out the window at those squirrels and said to themselves:

“Mmmm. Some good Eatin’ out there. Where’s my Varmint gun?”

Wild birds unlimited sells a nifty setup that defeats squirrels and if needed, raccoons. :-) https://order.wbu.com//poles-baffles-hobby-products/poles-baffles-hobby-products

A squirrel is a well-dressed rat, a whore with a fur coat. (Olivier Martineau)

Squirrels: rats that are specialized in public relations. (Lise Lepage)

We buy the birdseed that squirrels don’t like…end of problem. (We also feed the squirrels.)

So, he hooked up a cross circuit?

My wife put up a bird feeder when we were first married. It lasted about a month, before she stopped adding feed. She said she was sick of the mess both the birds and squirrels were making around the feeder and on the patio.

I think little Kate is perhaps the most appealing and funniest cartoon character I have seen in years – and that goes back to the late 1940s. Her dry sense of humor and her quiet, inevitable sense of self and rightness and the realities of life just trip my trigger. :^D

Bravo, Wiley!

One way to solve the problem is to not feed the birds in the first place. Unless the weather has been extremely bad, birds native to a given area don’t need to be fed in the spring, summer or fall — their food is there already. When you feed birds in the winter, you are endanger of encouraging them to remain in a colder environment than is good for them. Inability to find enough food on their own can weaken them, making them more susceptible to sickness and/or predators. Their natural timing of mating and egg-laying can be thrown off, meaning chicks may be born too early to survive the cold. And, it may alter their migration patterns putting them in competition with native species (Canada geese, for example).

The funny part of today’s strip is that it’s so over the top. Of course no sane person would power wire his bird feeders like that. What about stray dogs, cats, racoons, rabbits, small children, etc.?