Offerings
Previously on Exiern
Faden revealed a secret
and the squirrels plotted
Blog entry
I have been asked in the past what I have against squirrels. Why do I make the squirrels in Exiern so evil. To that question I have two responses.
The first response is:
The squirrels in Exiern are not evil. They’re a super-intelligent hive mind, with mystical powers, yes. But not evil. The are just obsessed with nut. As long as you don’t stand in-between them and a tasty acorn they have a pretty much live and let live mentality. Sure they could take over the world in a heart beat but such endeavors would simply distract them from there quest for nuts.
The second response is:
To even ask that question you are clearly a person who has never owned a bird feeder. Because if you had you would know that the squirrels in Exiern are in no what an exaggeration but a true and accurate portrayal of squirrel kind.
To own a bird feeder is a constant and futile war to keep squirrels out of the seed so that there would be some left for the birds. A war where you as the human are clearly out matched intellectually. I’ve tried everything from steel cages to grease to hot pepper powder. Out side of giving the squirrels in my neighborhood acquiring a taste for Mexican food everything has been a complete failure
Once, I even tried electrifying the bird feeder. I put a current line on the poll supporting the feeder and a ground line on the feeder. The idea was that when the squirrel climbed up the poll and touched the feeder they would get a shock. Well it took less than 24 hours for the squirrels to figure out how to get around that.
You are probably thinking that the squirrels learned to jump on the feeder. Nope. The little buggers chewed through the ground line. You see! That’s a solution that takes quite a bit of electrical engineering knowledge to achieve. These are no normal woodland creature.
The squirrels are out there and they surpass our puny human intelligence in every way. All hail the All squirrel.
By the way I figure I should point out we do have an all squirrel t-shirt in the store.
Purchasing it would please the secret masters of the world.
Discussion ¬
If you think that the squirrels are bad there, this is a story you might be interested in. A bird feeder atop a 5 1/2 foot pole with up facing spikes on the pole circling straight up to feeder. the pole was away from trees and the house. There was a power line running to the house 5 feet way. It took the squirrels a week to map the route to the feeder.
We have thwarted the squirrels with our birdfeeder. It hangs from a very long chain from a very high tree branch away from the fence and anything else they can jump from. I’m still surprised they haven’t tried to climb down the chain, but they haven’t.
A phrase I found on another webcomic… “Squirrel Apocalypse”
hehe
squirrels in my neighborhood last spring, junked 3 trucks by chewing their way into the engine and interior of the car, and chewed the terminals off the battery as well as the wires connecting it to the car. they even chewed through lead, LEAD, supports on a shed to get inside
One of my sister’s classmates swore that he saw a squirrel tear off the head of a pigeon in a park in London during their trip there. They were probably aiming for the same tossed grains.
I believe I heard there is also a “war” going on between squirrels native to England and a sort of squirrels accidentally brough in from Northern America.
Squirrels might actually be evil after all.
Cheers
Oh, they will, Tesser. They will.
That’s… Quite disturbing; rodents shouldn’t have that kind of logic and problem-solving capability…
One of the features of the North American Grey squirrel that has made it out-compete the native red squirrels of Britain (who are in danger of extinction because the greys are winning the squirrel war) is not just the grey’s larger strength and size, but also its clever brain that adapts quickly. Some people have taken to using the Grey Squirrel’s birdfeeder-obstacle-defeating talents as a way to train the squirrels over weeks oftime in their back gardens into running an obstacle course so they can film them. (i.e. when they have the method to defeat the obsticles you put out so far, then you add one more, until eventually they figure out that one, and you add another, and so on. Eventually you have a squirrel that’s running through an entire rube-goldberg process to get to the food.)
Here’s a cool video of one example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWU0bfo-bSY
My grandpa had lots of bird feeders in his front yard. He also had two specifically for squirrels. One was a present from myself and my sisters where you put a corn cob on a sort of squirrel-swing. Looked adorable. I know there are plenty of bird feeders out there that advertise as squirrel-proof. But I have no idea if they actually work. I think the only one that would work would be to put the seeds on the ground and train a cat or dog to hate the taste of bird but love the taste of squirrel.
If you live in a rural area, buy a .22 rifle with a scope, otherwise invest in a bb gun, there are bb guns for hunting you know.
Shooting the squirrels may seem like an effective idea, but it’s not effective in the long term. There are always more squirrels. I know.
Much cheaper and easier (as well as legal inside city limits) is a Yankee Squirrel Flipper. Keeps the squirrels from eating the bird seed and makes for plenty of entertainment as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NocRG3r2zBw&feature=related
We’ve tried that, used a BB Gun, and would shoot near the Squirrels. Actually there is a feeder that has a pressurized weight switch, if a bird lands, it’s not heavy enough to activate the switch, but if a squirrel lands, (or something squirrel weight-ish) it activates the switch and the outer ring, that the squirrel would have to stand on to get to the seed, starts to spin rapidly. Throws ’em off everytime.
I owrk on an airfield and the owner of it lives in a massive garden with 9 acres of land, 70% of which is forest…squirrels destroy everything, trees, tools, the sheds, the lawn everything…so she sits in one of her windows with a double barrel shot gun and shoots at them every now and then…it’ll never get rid of them but she usually gets a couple every time she tries and the loud noise scares them off for ages
The Squirrels are the front line of the great animal conspiracy.
http://www.vaguebuttrue.com/bt2_4416m.mp3
ohpleaseohpleaseohplease make the squirrels have an important-ish story arc!
rofl lowly dirt walker’s a
brb getting my bow and arrows time for squirrel meat
darth squirrel
Those squirrels are just plain awesome ^^
Ha, on that pressurized bird feeder that that M. talked about we have two squirrels that learned to hang upside down from the roof to get at the seed :\
“Out side of giving the squirrels in my neighborhood acquiring a taste for Mexican food everything has been a complete failure” LOL I wanna see Tiffany say sorry and then-never mind, I’ll not say that.
All hail Foamy.
I was hit in the boob with a terra cotta pot once. It hurt.