February 2, 2023 · 0 Comments
By Keith Schell
My late Father was raised on a farm. And because of his childhood experiences on the farm, he grew up with a love of the outdoors and a personal respect and reverence for animals and nature. He had a love of birds in particular.
From when we were young, Dad would always set out an open-air birdfeeder in the winter outside of the big dining room picture window at the side of our country house to attract whatever birds were indigenous to the area. We would load the feeder with sunflower seeds and hang large chunks of animal fat we got from the butcher for certain birds that liked to peck for their food instead of just simply eating seeds.
We spent many happy daytime winter hours at the dining room window watching the indigenous birds like Chickadees, Nuthatches, Woodpeckers, and even the occasional Evening Grosbeak fly in to feed at our birdfeeder and then fly out again.
And while our birdfeeder attracted local birds, the feeder also brought with it a common and annoying problem that anyone who has ever enjoyed feeding the birds has probably experienced:
Our open-air birdfeeder also attracted local squirrels.
Squirrels have always been a nuisance to anyone who enjoys feeding the birds over the winter. And our squirrels were no different.
Not long after our birdfeeder was put out, the squirrels arrived. They were not welcome.
And soon after the squirrels discovered our birdfeeder, we discovered the squirrels sitting inside our open-air birdfeeder enjoying a meal of sunflower seeds intended for our birds. Upon seeing this from the dining room window, our Father was irate!
Dad would bang on the dining room window in defence of his beloved birds, yelling at the squirrels to get out of the birdfeeder. Sometimes if we were handy, we would all do it too. In the beginning, it would work, but squirrels are smart, and eventually they learned to ignore the racket, and after that you would have to physically go outside every time to chase the squirrels out of the birdfeeder.
Constantly chasing the squirrels out of the birdfeeder was time-consuming and exasperating for our family. So our Father, like any good general, decided to deploy his troops to guard the fortress. Or, should I say, his troop.
He called our dog.
Dad and the dog sat by the dining room picture window and waited for the next intrusion of squirrels into the birdfeeder. When that happened, Dad would bang on the window, making a racket, and start yelling at the squirrels to get out of the birdfeeder. And as soon as the dog saw what was happening out the window, Dad’s enemy immediately became the dog’s enemy.
Dad pointed out the window and said to the dog, who understood every word, “See the squirrels? GO GET ‘EM!”
And like a good soldier obeying orders, the dog ran to the door, tail wagging and body shaking, waiting to be let outside. Dad let the dog out and the dog ran around to the side of the house and scared the squirrels out of the birdfeeder. They leapt from the feeder to the ground and ran up the nearest tree to safety. Mission accomplished.
And from that point on, the dog’s primary task over the winter became being in charge of the security of the birdfeeder.
Now knowing what was expected of her, the dog would keep watch out the dining room picture window and when she saw the squirrels invading the birdfeeder again, she would get very excited and agitated, tail wagging and body trembling, preparing to do battle with the squirrels again. She would run to the door, barely able to contain herself, and wait for one of us to catch up to her to open the door and let her out so she could run around to the side of the house again and scare the squirrels away.
While I didn’t particularly like the squirrels, I gradually came to respect and admire their tenacity, resourcefulness, intelligence, and acrobatic ability as they would reason out and solve every new trap or blockade we set out before them in their attempts to get a meal. They would jump from the ground to low-hanging feeders, tightrope walk across or slide down wires, and even jump from neighbouring trees onto the feeder to get to the seeds! Love them or hate them, for peanut brains, they were smart and daring little devils.
And the dog was no slouch, either. She would watch the squirrels from the window, studying their habits and occasionally adjusting her own tactics to suit the situation.
Sometimes, rather than coming back in the house after a successful mission, the dog would stay outside and hide around the corner of the house, lying in wait for the squirrels to come back. And when they did she would run around the corner to the feeder again and scare them away.
When that happened, she would catch the squirrels off guard as she charged the birdfeeder. But after the squirrels scattered, they would adjust their own tactics for the next offensive, and the mammalian chess match between the two combatants would begin yet again.
It got to be something resembling a Looney Tunes or a classic Disney cartoon after a while, watching the comical moves and counter-moves in the ongoing winter war between the dog and the squirrels for control of the birdfeeder.
While the dog never caught a squirrel, she served as an excellent deterrent. We had many hours of amusement over the winter watching the ‘battle for the birdfeeder’ in our yard. Neither side truly won, but the squirrels always seemed to get a bit of a meal out of the feeder before they got chased away by the dog. I smile when I think about it now.
Watching that sure beat anything that was on TV at the time!