Black squirrels in the bird garden

squirrel time

This morning a confluence of squirrels - little red one in the feeder, gray squirrel, fox squirrel and black squirrel all scolding each other and trying to rule the bird garden - very exciting!  It's warmer today, and as the snow melts, more seed layers appear.  

A second red squirrel is threatening , keeping a fox squirrel busy while the gray and black make hay!

no birds.  it's squirrel time.

a black squirrel

This morning a black squirrel was in the bird garden when I first came in.  It was quite shy, and when it saw me moving around in the sunroom, it ran away.  The fox squirrels are certainly braver, and one came close to the door, begging me for peanuts.  Instead it had to make do with what it could find as it bulldozed through the snow with its nose.

Where do they go?

Where do all the birds go when the weather is so severe?  It's cold and very gusty, blowing the new fallen snow around, making it feel like a blizzard.  There are no birds in our garden.  Where do they go for protection?

Squirrels

We do have a variety of squirrels, and in the interest of calling them by the correct names, I wikied them.  

The first photo is a fox squirrel.  The next two are gray squirrel.  You can clearly see the gray coat.  The next is a red squirrel in the bird feeder.  It is the only one small enough to fit inside!  

The last photo is a Eurasian red squirrel.  This is a photo from wikipedia.

http://www.michigandnr.com/publications/pdfs/huntingwildlifehabitat/Landowners_Guide/Species_Mgmt/Squirrels.htm

This website gives great descriptions of the squirrels we have in Michigan.

Eastern gray squirrel - "occupies most of eastern North America within mature mixed hardwood and conifer forests and was abundant in Michigan when the first settlers arrived.  

. . . overall silvery gray body, generally white belly, and tail hairs that are white-tipped.

. . . Black squirrels are simply melanistic phases of the gray squirrels.

. . . The gray squirrel lives most of its life in and around a single nest tree moving no more than 300 yards in a season and is the least social of all tree squirrels.

Fox squirrel - "heavier than the gray and is also longer." . . .  The fox has a buff to orange-colored belly, a back of tawny brown, and a long plumed tail of black brown with rust-tipped guard hairs.  Fox squirrels prefer small woodlots of mature trees throughout the Lower Peninsula. " *

Red squirrel -  "lives throughout the state.  This small species prefers a forest of conifers or conifers mixed with hardwoods, where it can find both hardwood mast (nuts) and pine seeds."

Flying squirrel - I don't think I've ever seen one in the wild, but I do remember a few years ago when I was in elementary school and Mother took me to visit Mrs. Drew, my first and second grade teacher.  She raised flying squirrels, and had them in a very large cage - as I recall, it took up most of an attached room.  

*"Before 1850, the fox squirrel was concentrated around grassland openings in oak forests of southwest Lower Michigan.  As the forests were cleared for agriculture and timber, fox squirrels used fence rows as travel routes to expand their range.  By 1925 the species was found throughout the Lower Peninsula.

Bluejays and peanuts

How do bluejays know that we just put out peanuts?  They arrive as soon as we get in the door.  Do they smell them?

Purple finch vs. house finch revisited!

I found a beautiful website with photos:

wildbirds photo gallery by Bob Moul at pbase.com

http://www.pbase.com/rcm1840/wild_birds

Cardinals at dusk

Why is it that cardinals are the only birds in the garden at dusk?  

Their chirping has Zenith glued to the window.

Clean birdbath!

We took advantage of the one-day thaw today.  It actually topped 40 degrees!  All the ice in the bird bath melted, so Dan carried water, and I scrubbed the birdbath, then refilled it.  I'm sure the wildlife will appreciate it, as they've been enjoying the water frequently.  It's made me feel bad, to see them bathing in the dirty water.  So now it's clean.

The naughty squirrels have just about wiped out our supply of sunflowers, raiding feeders that we thought were squirrel proof.  New strategies are required.