THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 18, 1997 TAG: 9702180001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A15 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: George Hebert
LENGTH: 61 lines
Before we gave up and let our fuzz-tailed adversaries have their way, my wife and I did a lot of bird-feeder battle with squirrels in our back yard.
But lately the even more bold disturbers are of another genus and species. The recent challenge to our wits, right smack in heavily settled Norfolk, has come from crows.
Yep, crows. Swooping in, perching and feeding - great, glossy-black, greedy lummoxes - just as if they were as small, mannered and entitled to our suet as wrens, titmice or chicadees.
I and others have written a lot about the brazen ingenuity of squirrels in getting to feeders, despite all manner of desperate human measures, and stuffing themselves. At people's and the birds' expense, inevitably.
They can leap incredible distances, at incredible angles, achieving unbelievable landings and - clinging in preposterous positions - proceed to eat whatever they want. Slippery metal poles, ``squirrel-proof'' metal or plastic collars on feeder posts, various other barriers and sneaky placement ideas almost always count for nothing.
We once had a squirrel slide down a long piece of nylon fishing line to reach a feeder dangling at its end, under a tree but out in an otherwise open yard space. The performance was like nothing so much as the descent of a fireman using one of those traditional brass poles in a firehouse.
At our place, we've tried both the gentle tactic of putting out squirrel delicacies in places far from the feeders, and the harsher method of dashing out the back door, yelling and throwing soft missiles like the boxes that plastic bags come in. Still the little gray imps turn up day after day at the bird stations, helping themselves, flipping their tails and almost smirking.
In recent days, we've watched much the same kind of impudence at work among the invading crows. They don't bother the seed-dispensers, but they are playing the devil with the suet. They've made a particular target of a little cage-like contraption we fill with suet and hang from a strong aluminum hook looped over a dogwood limb.
This container has a stout cord for hanging. The cord is also supposed to hold the cage lid shut, keeping the suet strips from being dragged out holusbolus. But this is a theory which our sooty raiders demolished early in the game.
That was when we found the suet-holder almost empty and the lid jammed in the open position. Our response to this was a small twist of tough wire to hold the lid firmly closed. That would stop 'em. Foolish thought.
In a day or two, we found the cage, on the ground this time, with the top hinged open again. Somehow the cord had been unwound and pulled loose from the limb hook. My little twist of wire holding the lid had been pried off.
At that point, I launched another round of anti-crow security. I retwisted the lid wire into position, tied a complicated knot to secure the hanging cord to our limb hook and squeezed that hook so tight back on itself that the cord, I was sure, couldn't be lifted out by the strongest and most agile beak.
Wrong again. But I'll keep trying. M as more and more nut-burying holes appear in our lawns and more and more black wings darken the sky: That the squirrels and the crows may take over the earth.
And they could do it for sure. The reason is simple:
They're smarter than we are. MEMO: Mr. Hebert, a former editor, lives in Norfolk.