Squirrel on guard

Well done, Fran on so many super pics :o)))

determination ought to be its middle name! i love that first picture ~ is he checking you out too!??

looks like he has a feast when he visits you fran!

That was a slow day, I had little else to do - well, I had plenty to do but little inclination to do it! I must have spent a couple of hours watching, in sessions, standing at my bedroom window, camera poised - had to stop now and then to thaw my hands out!

I've seen some "squirrel-proof" bird feeders on the RSPB site - the mesh is samller than on mine, and might actaully work - but if the squirrels are attracted by the food, and can't get at it, they might take revenge on my plants

i have a 'squirrel proof' feeder!!!!!!! and somewhere a photo of a squirrel inside it!!!

they get very cross when they cant get the food ~ but mostly they seem to take the feeder apart if they can ~ never seen them attack the plants ~ they do climb up the nearby trees and shout though!

nods to Sticki - I've lost a wire feeder completely; they took another one right over the fence, and this one might have gone the same way. It was getting to the stage when I had to tie the feeders on to the hooks - sure they'd not be able to untie my knots! but then, neither am I, I have to cut the string if i want to move or refill the feeder.

I've lost ten troughs of flowers, five of pansies and five of pentunias - they kept digging in the troughs and uprooting the plant; I'd often find a flower lying on the ground beside the trough.

Even now my troughs are being excavated; I try to smooth out the soil over the bulbs and spread bark chips, and almost every time I go out there's a hole. Someone said that they're pretending to bury nuts, so that any thieves will dig in the wrong places. Flipping annoying, whether there's nuts there or not.

And they use my garden as a playground: one often runs along the windowsill, hehind the table in front of it; the times small pots have been knocked over!

I think it'd be safer all round if I just stopped trying to feed the birds - unless I can get access to the locked-off green beyond our gardens, then even if hte squirrels can't get at that food they won't be drawn into my garden to cause a nuisance.

sorry birds ....

would it work to put some sort of wire netting over the top of your pots fran ~ so the plants can grow through but squirrels cant dig ~ im thinking fairly small chicken wire type mesh???

That's a good idea Sticki. I've heard you can also bury chicken wire 1/2" under the soil and that might do the trick?

if it was just bulbs you can wrap those in the wire, although that doesnt solve everything ~ the birds peck the petals off the crocuses!

I've been trying not to get too "Colditz" - i've used chillis, which obviously need renewing! Wire mesh would probably work for one-stemmed plants, but I've got some mini-shrubs, and unless i thread each stem through the mesh ... Of course it'd be a lot easier to put small wire mesh up all over the garden! Average "length" is only eight feet, so wouldn't take too much. And, as a bonus, it'd keep the rubbish out - some idiot upstairs keeps chucking small rubbisho ut of their window, guess where it ends up? Of course it wouldn't stop them doing it, it'd just get stuck on the wire.

you could have a trampoline fran and bounce all the rubbish back up to the thoughtless person above!

lol STicki, if I knew which window it was coming from ... so far it's only been small bits - empty plastic water bottle, cooked beefburger, pair of blue knickers, half a dozen small plastic rounds that had mini pies in them - but who's to say when a glass bottle or jar might not come down? after all, anyone daft enough to chuck rubbish out of a window in the first place ...

hmmm, maybe i can use that argument to get the ocuncil to roof it off for me! I've been keeping a log of the bits i've found, and photos, too.

i hope those beefburgers were truly beef!

as for the rest ~ not nice!! you need a safety net above ~ which might act as a support for climbers? a grape vine?!!!

lol and a lot more if I can! they must put supporting struts up, so there's some hanging basket space - and if the mesh is fine enough, the feeders can go up and the squirrels won't be able to get at them, or my plants!

sounds like a great plan!

now all I need is for the council to agree! but I've kept a log, and I've taken pics of the rubbish when I've seen it. Checked my notes, I first reported this last year, and was told that someone would get back to me "by next week". long weeks these council people have!

ps just emailed them to explain problem, give them the reference number they gave me last June with the promose that someone would be in touch "by next week", and to ask for a mesh roof - might as well go for the full monte, they can only say "push off!"

hmm i can well imagine ~ what would their reaction be if you made the suggestion of how to solve the problem?

smiles, probably what they've done up to now, ie not a thing! They'll probably drop letters round the block, telling people not to chuck rubbish out of the windows (anyone that needs telling is too stupid to be able to understand such a letter!).

I did ask for mesh, though I added that that wouldn't stop the ashtray-emptying - maybe they'll roof all over, give me a weatherproof outdoor space.

Can't see them doing that, though. Can't even really see them netting over the space, but wanted to impress on them that the situation is dangerous, shoud idiot upstairs take it into their pea brain to chuck anytihng heavier out

they reckon they answer emails within 48 hours - given that today is Friday, I'm assuming that their time starts from Monday - but then, I've been waiting nine months for them to get back to me "next week"

Must be infuriating to have rubbish thrown in, so very annoying.

it's mostly small stuff (so far) but that makes it harder to see, and I don't want food rubbish lying about for days - squirrels aren't the only pests that might be attracted!

What gets me is that it's so unnecessary - people have bins! or even plastic carrier bags to put rubbish in. And I can't believe it's a child doing this, unless the child smokes and chucks the butts out of the window to hide the evidence ... I found a neat cone of cigarette ends, must have been three or four inches high, where an ashtray, and a large one, had been tipped out of the window. There's no need for that at all.

if you drop litter in the street isnt there a hefty fine now? why would this be different?

it shouldn't be! should be worse, because it's not as if you're littering your *own* space! no doubt, if they ever do find out who dunnit, there'll be a course of "counselling". Fair enough, so long as they stop doing it. and might help them: if they do this, what else might they do, like stroll out in front of traffic?