Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed

But not so smart. The squirrels quickly found the decoy feeder I installed to pull them away from the bird feeder. So far, I haven't managed to attract any birds, but now all of the neighborhood boomers* know where to get goobers**. I've witnessed several attempts to get at the peanuts, but so far, only one squirrel, Feynman, has managed to figure out that you can't open the lid while you are standing on it. The other squirrels have worked out their own solution, they wait for Feynman to spill a few and then go foraging underneath the feeder for the spillage. Feynman seems to resent this as he now takes greater care when he extracts a peanut. I hope the rest figure it out before they decide that shaking the "squirrel proof" bird feeder is an easier way to get fed.

Here's a picture of Feynman just before he figured out how to open the lid. Unfortunately, I wasn't fast enough to re-focus and get a picture of him pulling out a peanut. The feeder is designed so that he could stand on the metal bar. His solution is different, he hangs from the top of the fence by his rear feet and swings up to open the lid.

I wonder if squirrels can be trained? They've obviously trained me to spend my money on feeding them.

* Appalachian slang for squirrel
** Southern slang for peanut

Comments

[Jessamy]

I call the black one "Black Squirrel of Death." Or sometimes blackie. Huh. Kind of depends on my mood, I guess.

[lobbygow]

There is a black squirrel that we have name, oddly enough, "blackie." Blackie is smaller than Feyman and may be a female, although I haven't gotten close enough to check. There is also a calico squirrel that is a mixture of black and reddish brown.

Feynman will now come right up to me if I stand still enough and will probably be at the stage where I can hand him a peanut soon. Unfortunately, I'm worried that the stage after that involves being mugged and stripped searched by his gang (kind of like "Willard," but with squirrels).

Maybe I should just stick to putting peanuts in the feeder.

[Jonathan]

Cool, Dave! You should capture Feynman and breed to form a race of genius supersquirrels. I'm not sure what you'd want to breed him with, though. Probably not a run-of-the-mill squirrel. Maybe a black one.