Tuesday, November 15, 2016
The Sunday before Halloween I picked up a pair of discounted pumpkins (75% off) to turn into critter feeders in the backyard. Chopped an opening in the side, and for the first one I scooped out all the pumpkin guts and dried the seeds. Dumped in a bunch of squirrel food (corn, sunflower seeds, peanuts) as well as the dried pumpkin seeds, and overall the squirrels seemed pretty happy... they even chowed down on some of the pumpkin itself (which is part of what I was hoping would happen.)
Last week I put out the second one... I was lazier this time and only stirred up the pumpkin guts, but left most of it inside the pumpkin. The squirrels seem to have taken care of removing the innards... I watched one go back and forth pulling out seeds and burying them all over the backyard. Maybe I won't need to buy pumpkins next year...
This morning I took a look out the window (I'd filled the feeders last night) and saw one of the neighborhood cats sitting on the squirrel feeding platform attached to the fence. No big surprise, I've seen cats there before - apparently it's a comfortable place to watch the birds at the feeders. The surprise came a moment later - when one of the squirrels came charging down the fence line and chased the cat off (he jumped down to the ground and sat under the platform) so that the squirrel could get food from the pumpkin.
I guess the cats won't be reducing the local squirrel population anytime soon... though it's quite possible the hawks that I occasionally see around here in the winter may have that action all buttoned up.
JMH
