The other day, before going to church, I looked out of the kitchen window a the bird feeders. I told Rosemary, "there are about a dozen cardinals at the feeder."
"What kind?" she asked. "Are they male, female or other?"
I assumed she asked because the male Northern Cardinal has red plumage in contrast to the female with her duller, drabber feathers. I just wasn't sure what category the 'other' was about.
However, when I went back to the kitchen, there were now a dozen males and a dozen females. Don't know why. Maybe the recent snow or the coolish weather. I went out and threw some handfuls of black sunflower seed on top of the snow. Cardinals rarely land on the feeders- they seem to prefer to pick the seeds from off the ground or snow. In that way they are dependent on the goldfinches, sparrows and chickadees to scatter some seed from out of the feeder. The mourning doves are similar in that they also seem to prefer to feed from the ground.
On Sunday, however, the squirrels moved in. Now that our dog has gone, the squirrels come around to the feeder with impunity. There had to be 7-8 squirrels gobbling up the seeds as fast as they could. Some grey, some black.
I'm going to have to rethink some strategies to cope with the squirrel invasion.
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Wikipedia says red pepper flakes will not hurt birds but will be remembered by squirrels. Why don't birds have spicy sensors? I dunno. Anyway...i know you probably have some pepper you could spare....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_feeder#Squirrels
Tried cayenne pepper, about a handful (although I didn't put it in my hand), along with about a pound of sunflower seed. Stirred it up, and put some right in the open. The squirrels came and made short work of it. It didn't work.
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