Close to Home by John McPherson for January 03, 2025

Nice, and front row seats too

Dang! Gotta get my 12-gauge again.

Caught an online article recently (WITH a video) of squirrels catching, killing and eating other rodents.

Several years ago I read a fictional horror story about chipmunk filling the predator role due to humans wiping out higher predators (bobcats, coyotes) and were killing owls.

Yes, the killer squirrels were in one area of Northern California, and they were killing and eating voles.

I think owls would take a real interest in this altercation. Plenty of opportunity to enjoy squirrel meat.

The squirrels have gone nuts…

I’m not seeing Bleeb.

Calm down! They’re not wearing leather jackets and snapping their fingers, so they could just be getting ready to play a flag football game.

Pony Boy?

When you’re a Bird, you’re a Bird all the way

From your first wriggly worm to your last dyin’ day

When you’re a Bird, if the feeder runs dry

You got brothers around, you’re a family guy.

Bleeb is a peaceful little guy, so he steered clear of the strip today.

10 spot on the birds.

Bleeb can’t handle violence.

Grease the pole, squirrels hate that.

Around here, bears have been known to raid bird feeders.

cool! lets make some popcorn and watch them duke it out. :D

Around here we see flying squirrels once in awhile. They’re attached to the bottom of a large hawk.

We could use some birds with attitude.

I have a lot of scampering squirrels in my yard and some try to get on the feeders but never have they been successful.

Let’s Get Ready To Ruuuuuuummmmmmmmbbbbbbbbblllllllllllllllleeeeeee.

Sorry, no contest there. Now, if the shrikes and hawks hear about what’s going down, they ALL need to vamoose!

Call an advice lord.

He doesn’t seem Barry interested.

My money’s on the squirrels. Seed money, that is.

Bleeb’s somewhere hiding filming this for YouTube! :)

Like something out of West Side Story. Bleeb’s at the mirror singing I’m so pretty.

Squirrels for the win! Mind you, it IS called a Bird Feeder, not a Squirrel Feeder.

where’s Bleeb?

Seeing that many squirrels, I would send for the Squirrel Shooter from England.

Before you get too upset at the idea, he is doing something necessary. Gray squirrels from North America are/were overrunning Britain, leading to a decline in the native red squirrels. So the Brits employ people to reduce the Gray Squirrel population. This particular guy uses a small caliber rifle with scope with noise and flash suppression. He sets up a bait station and kills with head shots. The bait station slopes so the dead squirrels slide off.

You might think (as I did) that squirrels must be pretty clever to solve some of the elaborate anti-squirrel setups posted on the net.

But this guy does not immediately go pick up the dead squirrels. This can result in quite a lot of dead squirrels around the bait station. But the next squirrel to come to the station will always look around before feeding. You can see them looking at the dead squirrels, but they do not react to that. When satisfied with their look-around, they feed… and soon join the others. Seeing this happen time after time, you have to conclude that it is not intelligent behavior. And clearly their ability to count must be limited.

By the way, the bait station is laid out so that when the squirrels feed, the shooter always has a clear head shot. He doesn’t want them to suffer. In the rare instances when the squirrel is not immediately killed, he will break cover and go dispatch the wounded.

Some of you may be upset by this, but the grays are an invasive species and they threaten the welfare and survival of the native red squirrel population. You cannot use traps or poison in this situation because you’ll kill the red squirrels, too, and neither is as humane as a bullet in the (small) brain.

Uh-Oh, is the human disease spreading?

Gotta get a nut somehow

Not exactly “Sharks” VS “Jets”.

Dive bomb ’em birds, remember King Kong.