Let me introduce you to the squirrel that shows up in our front yard every year and eats the seeds out of the bird feeder hanging from our pear blossom tree.
Last summer, I asked my Facebook friends, "How do I keep the squirrel from climbing onto my bird feeder and spilling the contents of that feeder, aside from running out the front door, clapping my hands, and yelling, 'Squirrel, that's not for you!'?"
I received several suggestions: Put the feeder on a metal pole, buy a bird feeder with a squirrel guard, shoot it with a BB gun. (This last tip prompted a healthy discussion on gun control, pacifism, and vegetarianism.)
I took none of the advice. I did, however, buy non-germinating bird seed.
This summer, like last summer, I filled the feeder and waited for the myriad of exotic birds with multicolor plumage - as promised by the bird seed package - to light daintily on the edge of the cedar perch. Until . . .
"Squirrel, that is not your food! And you look fat this year! Have you been eating all of this bird seed?" By this time, I was standing in the front yard, shouting up the tree, and clapping my hands at the squirrel wildly. "Look at how much seed is on the ground! Did you do that?"
Squirrel, as I so affectionately call him, did not answer me. But the neighbors walking their dog furtively crossed to the other side of the street.
I did not refill the bird feeder, deciding that the birds (and probably Squirrel) should eat the seed off the ground first. Eventually, once the seed disappeared, Squirrel took to gnawing on the wooden feeder instead. We now have a large chunk missing from the feeder's side and perch.
The cute, colorful birds, that occasionally outsmart Squirrel, are not innocent players in this summertime cat-and-mouse (or squirrel-and-bird) game.
Last summer, when I wasn't looking, a bird built a nest in one of my fuchsia plants, hanging on our front porch. Before I got around to removing the nest, the bird had already laid her eggs. I couldn't in good conscience destroy her babies, so the nest stayed and consequently killed my fuchsia.
But the babies were adorable, their miniature beaks flailing in the air when their mama would fly to the nest to feed them, their squeaky chirping, their tiny, fuzzy heads poking above the fuchsia leaves.
One day, I came home from work, and the babies were gone.
"Dan," I said, almost in tears, "the baby birds are gone. The nest is abandoned!"
"That's what happens when birds grow up. They fly away."
"I feel like I helped them grow into independent, self-reliant creatures. And now they've disappeared, without even a goodbye! I'll miss them."
"Okay . . ." Dan said. "We're never having kids."
The birds left behind a nest full of droppings and a dead plant.
As much fun as I had hatching baby birds last summer, I decided I wanted my plants to survive this year. So we removed the nest as soon as it appeared in our fuchsias. About a half-hour later, Dan had to remove another one. And a half-hour after that, yet another nest magically manifested.
This time, it was my job to dispose of the nest. All of a sudden, I heard a fluttering of wings and a nasally squawking from the tree. There sat an extremely agitated female bird, glaring at me with such animosity that I thought I might have been warped into the middle of a Hitchcock movie.
"It's okay, birdie," I cooed calmly. "I just want my fuchsia to live. You're going to have to find another nesting area."
This remark was greeted with more violent wing-flapping.
I ran inside with the nest.
"We have to do something, NOW! That bird wants to kill me."
Dan decided we should stick sharp objects in the plants to prevent the birds from landing.
"I don't want to kill the birds. I just want my plants to live."
We compromised. Dan armed the soil with plastic forks and knives instead. While he prepared the plants, I stepped out onto our front porch. Up on our roof was the soon-to-be mama bird, her mouth full of twigs and dead grass. A colorful, presumably male, bird was "supervising" the operation. They looked around, bewildered as if to say, "Where did you put my potential nesting location?"
"Ha ha! Not so smart now, are you?" I said to the birds. "No nest here for you! Not in my fuchsias! You'll have to go somewhere else! "
"And you wonder why our neighbors don't talk to us," Dan said as we hung our plants back up.
It worked. Our hanging plants are nest-free. We still have beautiful birds that visit our feeder when Squirrel is not around. A few weeks ago, we even had a Chukar in our driveway. Dan was so excited, he recorded a video of the bird waddling around and making strange noises.
Now if I could only figure out how to keep my little summer creature friends from eating my sunflowers! That may be a story for next year.
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