squirrel vader and his minions

Well, the squirrels have stepped up their assault of the sunflower seed feeder.

As the Irish joke says, they are driving me flipping me wild.

Squirrel Vader is absolutely over the top. Literally. I have found him wrapped around the ball feeder through the little hanging arm.  He should buy it a drink first.

That is the one with the bushy tail. His minions, have rat like tails. I have named them: Squirrelo Ren and Squirrel Tyranus. They are also known as the Three Stooges, but I also call another trio of ass-hats that too, so I do not use it too much with the squirrels. It is a bit of an insult to the squirrels compared to these knuckleheads.

These guys (the squirrels, not the knuckleheads) sit in the birch tree and think I do not know what they are up to. I have been throwing various objects, mostly hazel nuts, at them to shoo them away. It has now reached the point of when I open the back door to the deck that they either throw themselves off and smack the ground or they take off and I grab a fallen branch and wave it around until they back off.

Yes, I am turning in to one of those weird neighbours.

The thing is, they are working so hard at being lazy. It baffles me. There are easy pickings on the ground. I am pretty sure the American goldfinches are throwing seeds down to them just to spite me. That is fine.

If those dinks would just take the easy pickings. I have already had to replace the nylon cord that the feeder was hanging off of with electrical wire, because they chewed through it. (I wonder, if I hooked a battery up to the wire, would it hurt the birds. Not really though. That would be wrong.)

Today, somehow, they popped the lid off the feeder. It is held in place with a spring that is supposed to be squirrel proof. Well, it is not.

The squirrels with the brown tails seem to not be going after the feeder directly. One, with a golden brown tail, usually just stays where he is when I open the door. He has not pissed me off and it seems that he realises that. I have yet to name him. Ginger? Golden Boy? Slacker? Suggestions? 

However, the one (all) brown squirrel that appears to have made our property his home was in up to its elbows this morning on the feeder. I have named this one Squirrelajj Ventress. I was very disappointed with this one.

Mister Chippy, the chipmunk, has not tried, as far as I know, to assault the feeder. He seems to just feed off the ground. He is up to something though, because I have not seen him much. I did find him in the garage the other day, but he left quite amicably when I asked him to leave.

The grey squirrels have not been sighted for some time, but they usually disappear for a while, but it is early days for that. Maybe they cashed in their airmiles and are somewhere balmy.

It will be difficult over the next few days to defend the fortress, as I am undergoing dental surgery tomorrow, and I have been advised that I will be quite messed up. I hope not. I was hoping to run the boy through his hiking route for his Scouting Challenge on Saturday. Actually, I will just brief him and he will hike it with me just following. That way, he understands the route for the actual day. That is, if he goes. If not, he has the satisfaction that he completed it on his own. Plus he adds to his total for the Rideau Trail Canada 150 Challenge. He is already up to just over 40 kliks, and that is just doing it sporadically on weekends since March. This hike will add about 20 km and if he does the hike again with his Scout Troop, that is another 20 k. He would be half done.

Anyway, very late. I need to get a hike in tomorrow morning before surgery and probably fight off a few assaults on my precious bird feeder as well; before getting doped up and have parts of my body forcibly removed. Nighty-night.