Amusing today to watch a squirrel that is clearly not as agile as some, scrambling about on our feeders and looking most uncomfortable. Mind you, they're nothing if not persistent, these squirrels: uncomfortable he may have been, and on one occasion he slipped off altogether quite spectacularly, but in the end he got his breakfast, and I hadn't the heart to rush out there shouting and throwing sticks.
For a while this morning the squirrel baffle actually did what it was supposed to. Yesterday I moved a planter that the squirrels had used as a launch pad for their leaps onto the feeding station. So this morning the squirrel made several attempts to climb the pole from the bottom, each time stymied by the baffle and having to return to ground level. He then climbed a nearby bush, and tried to get to the end of an overhanging branch that pointed out in the general direction of the feeders. Squirrels are quite light, and this one was smaller than some, but even so the branch was never going to be strong enough!
So the squirrel then tried a flying leap up from the lawn. He cleared the baffle, grabbed the pole, couldn't keep his grip, and we were treated to the sight of the spectacular fall mentioned above. He just tried again, and this time managed (just) to hold on. He climbed to the top of the feeding pole, balanced there looking a bit vulnerable as it swayed in the wind, then out of the feeders hanging there selected the only one with a squirrel-proof guard around it. He scrambled down that, and hung on to the base, allowing a few seeds to trickle out, which he was able to consume. Then he fell off again.
Undaunted, back up he went, and this time selected the other feeders. This was highly entertaining viewing, but - as mentioned before - the presence of a squirrel on the feeding station keeps the birds away, for the most part, and so I continue to feel I ought to discourage them.
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