The problem with wildlife is
that the creatures in your garden haven’t seen all those Walt Disney movies and
so they don’t know how they’re supposed to behave. It isn’t just that they don’t spontaneously break
out into cute songs. It’s that they
behave like, well, animals.
Take our birdfeeders. Back in November, we purchased a twin-hooked steel
pole, an Audubon-approved feeder, a 50-pound bag of sunflower seeds, a suet
cage, and a six-pack of suet cakes. We
placed the pole out behind our house and almost immediately were inundated with
birds. And, not just any birds. We had chickadees, house wrens, flickers,
downy woodpeckers, and orioles. We were
stewards of the land.
We felt so good about the first pole
that we acquired a second one and mounted a worm feeder atop it, then stocked
the feeder with freeze-dried meal worms (who knew?) to attract yet other bird
species. That was followed in short
order by a third pole with still another seed feeder and suet cage.
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| The enemy |
Then, two things happened. First, squirrels discovered the feeders. We would see them during the day, sitting
around in the trees, smoking little cigarettes, shooting craps and listening to
gangsta rap, waiting for us to turn out the lights in the house. Late at night they would then quickly scale
the poles, knock much the seed out of the feeders, and gorge themselves until
dawn. Come daylight, we would find empty
feeders and obese squirrels.
Worse, one squirrel crew set
about chewing off the bottommost two perches.
One morning we discovered they had very nearly succeeded in chewing
through the connecting pins that held the bottom of the feeder together. One more pin and there would have a glorious
avalanche of seed that would have found a place in the lore of the Grand
Council of Squirrels. That feeder is now
held together with steel-infused strapping tape.
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| Squirrels tried to gnaw out the bottom of the feeder |
We reminded ourselves that we had
put up bird feeders. Not squirrel
feeders. We began greasing the poles and
took pleasure at watching squirrels take flying leaps onto the poles, only to
slide ignominiously down to the ground; the seed safe from their gluttonous
grasp.
But then, without notice, the second
thing happened: the birds disappeared. We
tried to tell ourselves that our neighbors must have put up newer, better
feeders; possibly with live music and a cappuccino machine. It made no sense that we would be so readily
abandoned.
One afternoon two weeks ago, we
were chatting with our across-the-street neighbor. Her two boys have a seasonal ice rink in
their front yard and can skate on it for hours.
But, our neighbor said, sometimes the boys put down their hockey sticks in
fascination just to watch and admire the hawk.
“What hawk?” we asked.
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| Yep, there's a hawks nest |
Our neighbor obligingly pointed
to a sixty-foot-tall pine at the front of our property and move her finger up
the tree trunk. There, fifty feet up in
the air, was a massive aerie. From it, a
hawk could gaze up and down the street looking for unsuspecting mice and
moles. And, by turning its head just a
little to the right, it could monitor the comings and goings at our feeders.
Hawks
are carnivores. It is well known
that hawks eat small mammals such as mice, rats, voles and other rodents. Less
well known is that hawks – and especially red-tailed hawks like the one we had
seen numerous times in the wetlands behind our home – also eat smaller birds,
frogs and reptiles. (When a two-foot-long
garter snake disappeared from our garden, Betty did not go looking for a
culprit.)
When a bird is snatched from a feeder by a
hawk, the other birds scatter and look for less vulnerable feeding spots. After a period of time, they’ll return to the
scene of the abduction. It’s a cycle
that will repeat itself as long as supplemental feeding is needed.
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| 'Our' red-tailed hawk |
What’s a steward of the land to
do? It is not that we placed the feeders
in too exposed an area. The tree canopy
is less that twenty feet away and birds perch within a few seconds flight from
the feeders. But hawks are excellent
hunters, and they are silent and swift. We’ll leave the feeders in place until
our over-wintering avian friends no longer have use for them. As for the hawk, it’s part of nature. Hawks got to hunt.
But the squirrels? Let them order take-out pizza or whatever
those Disney rodents live on. I’m going
to keep greasing those poles.
