American Red Squirrels

I spent last week at our family cottage where there are a bunch of little red squirrels around. Love them or hate them, they certainly are cute, but beware! Leave a coffee cup unattended and a squirrel will explore it.

They are entertaining creatures and, although incredibly skittish, their boldness is surprising. We must be huge monsters to them but they will snatch a peanut from your hand, always a hit with kids.

When we were teens, we followed them to see where they put the peanuts. We watched them dig a hole, make multiple trips to fill it, cover it up, and repeat. Most of their waking time was spent finding and storing food.

One day, (admittedly looking for entertainment at an off-grid cottage), we tied a few peanuts to the deck with long strings. One little squirrel grabbed a peanut then leapt for a tree and had to choose half way whether his dentures were coming with him BUT he came right back and chewed all the strings off. So much for our fun! They certainly are clever.

When we watched them competing with the birds at the bird feeder, we got a separate squirrel feeder.

We did make sure that peanuts were okay for them and now the local hardware store stocks squirrel peanuts, you know, raw, unsalted, in-the-shell peanuts. You would hate for them to spend time storing a food that harmed them or didn't make it through the winter.

The feeder is nothing more than a little box that keeps the peanuts dry. As you can see, it seems to work for the squirrel too. One squirrel -- if two squirrels see each other on the deck, there is a scuffle! The larger one drives the smaller one away, briefly -- it always returns.

And now the cheeky squirrels chatter at the cottage window when the feeder is empty!

I won't feed the squirrels at home. They're the larger Eastern Grey Squirrels and I know the damage they can do. And until this spring, these little guys had never caused a problem at the cottage, but at some point, they decided to break in! They tore through 2 window screens, but my family just replaced the screens with squirrel proof ones.