Backroads and Bobtails
Feeding Squirrels is for the Birds
by Bob Kornegay

Among my favorite and most rewarding outdoor pastimes is the attracting and feeding of wildlife, especially birds. Like thousands of other like-minded folks, I derive great pleasure from relaxing beneath a shade tree or on the back porch observing common, and sometimes rare avian species as they partake of the contents of my well-supplied backyard feeders. The sensation ranks right up there with babbling brooks, tropical breezes, and foot massages.

There's one down side, however. You see, when you feed birds, you also feed squirrels, whether you want to or not. It's inevitable. Gray squirrels flock to a backyard bird feeder like Cletus Monroe's family to an all-you-can-eat rib night at Sonny's Barbecue.

This is not an inherently bad thing, I guess. After all, squirrels are cute and playful little critters, energetic bundles of energy whose antics can often be quite entertaining as they chase and chatter at each other in competition for the choicest morsels contained in my favorite wild bird mix.

Bird mixes, however, especially when one is careful to provide a good balance of nutritious ingredients, become expensive over time. This is particularly true when every squirrel in the surrounding countryside shows up in your yard to scatter your carefully selected seeds, fruits, and nuts from Genesis to Revelation.

Squirrels, as most outdoors folks know, are messy eaters when their dinner table is a bird feeder. They have no scruples (or manners) when it comes to scratching out the things they don't like to get at the things they do. Hence, one may frequently findhimself filling his bird feeders more often than time or pocketbook allows.

And don't dare leave a feeder empty around marauding squirrels. There is always one or two morsels inside that a determined bushytail will spare no effort to purloin. The aggravating little tree rats can demolish an "empty feeder quicker than my Uncle Ray could chug a Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Through the years, I've tried every "remedy" available for dissuading these little thieves.

I once tried shooting them during squirrel season. A squirrel fattened on bird seed makes tasty eating, but I worried whether or not I might be breaking the law.

All-metal, squirrel-proof feeders worked pretty well, but are downright ugly in an ornamental garden setting. I soon grew weary of looking at them and took them down.

Enter the owl decoy.

Big plastic owl replicas, I was told, would terrify the squirrels and keep them at bay. Yeah, right. They either ignored the dupes completely or else gnawed right through them, obviously figuring they contained bird seed as well. To top it off, the pseudo-owls attracted crows during daylight hours. The songbirds fledfrom the crows while the squirrels stayed.

Next I tried squirrel-feeding stations. Occupy them with ears of corn on rotating spindles, and they will ignore the bird feeders. Uh huh. Soon, my corn bill was so high I felt like a commercial feedlot operator. And what to do with the leftover cobs? Indoor plumbing has rendered such things all but obsolete.

Then came the really bright idea of mixing powdered red pepper into my seed mixes. Birds ignore it while squirrels won't go near it, said the "experts." Well, maybe my squirrels migrated in from Mexico or Cajun country. They never even sneezed. Just kept on eating. Worse, did you ever rub your eyes or stick your fingers into your mouth after hand-mixing a shaker full of red pepper into a pound of bird seed?

Ouch.

Oh, well, I give up. I'm gonna nail up those squirrel-proof feeders again. Ugly, yes, but I do derive a measure of perverse pleasure watching a lazy, obese squirrel slip from that slick metal roof and land with a thud upon the ground.

And who knows? Perhaps I'll have a year or two of trouble-free bird feeding before the critters learn how to use a crowbar or a screwdriver.

(Email Bob Kornegay at cletus@ windstream.net)