Every boomer with a bird feeder hates squirrels. I don’t understand.
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Squirrels eat the bird food meant for the birds and are extremely hard to stop
Why are the squirrels second class citizens to the birds? Is there a bird food shortage?
No, it’s just a bird feeder not a squirrel feeder. At least until the squirrels manage to change the signage, which they probably could if they tried hard enough.
Squirrels can clean out a feeder pretty quickly. Not as fast as deer can, but much faster than the birds.
So it’s a pain in the ass to go fill it back up, and it costs money. A person gets a bird feeder because they want to watch birds. There are cheaper ways to feed squirrels, if you like squirrels.
Both squirrels and birds can build nests in your home. Squirrels can chew their way into your attic, then you risk them chewing through wires. Birds nest in your dryer vent or bathroom vent. A nest in the dryer vent is a fire hazard. And they can introduce bird mites into your home. It’s like having a bed bug infestation except you can’t see them, their bites are hella itchy, and at least they can be dealt with by multiple rounds of thorough vacuuming. Ask me how I know.
I used to love to keep a bird feeder and watch the bird party on a snowy day. But I wasn’t out to feed the deer, and the mite problem erased any lingering feelings about feeding birds.
How do you know?
Birds are super good for the environment, take a quick google!
Squirrels on the other hand, are an invasive species in much of the world.
In my home province squirrels make it pretty hard for some of our local trees etc.
A particular species of squirrels. I think people in this thread fail to make clear that this is exclusively about the North American grey squirrel. The Eurasian red squirrel is not invasive anywhere, And I strongly doubt anyone have any problem with having them in their bird feeder, since they are solitary and relatively shy creatures.
Squirrels in my area don’t share. And will do whatever they can to get to the feeder, even if that means breaking shit. I currently use a seed that has some spillage and that’s kept the squirrels satisfied. I don’t mind them, but they end up making it sl I won’t get any birds.
Squirrels are an invasive species, they chew wires and mess with stuff.
Birds are pretty, sound nice, and eat bugs. They also poop on everyone’s stuff, but somehow it’s good luck if you get shit on.
Squirrels are an invasive species, they’re not native to North America.
Just how many tens of millions of years do a species need to exist in a place before you consider it native to that land?
“The earliest known North American squirrel fossil dates back to the late Eocene epoch, about 34 million years ago.” source
North American grey squirrels are an invasive species… in Europe. They seem to be able to outcompete the native red squirrels here
@Shadow@lemmy.ca said “they’re not native to North America.” which is incorrect. North America squirrels may be invasive on other continents but certainly not in North America.
Oh, I’m not disagreeing with you by any means. I just thought it was kinda funny that they had the direction of the invasiveness of that particular animal backwards
Yeah I caught that and edited it before I thought anyone saw it.
Don’t forget the obviously non-invasive european starling and european house sparrow common at feeders. /s
Only about 300 years, from your own link you kindly provided:
When European settlers first arrived in North America, they brought with them a number of animals that were not native to the continent. One of these animals was the eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), which was introduced to England in the early 1600s as a curiosity.
The eastern gray squirrel quickly became popular in England, where it was kept as a pet and admired for its agility and intelligence. In the late 1700s, a group of eastern gray squirrels was introduced to New York City’s Central Park, where they quickly established a population.
Over the next few decades, the eastern gray squirrel spread rapidly across North America, aided by its adaptability and ability to thrive in a variety of habitats. Today, the eastern gray squirrel is one of the most common squirrels in North America, and it can be found in every state except for Alaska and Hawaii.
Only about 300 years, from your own link you kindly provided:
I think you need to read that carefully again. Squirrels have been in North America for millions of years before Europeans arrived. The part you quoted was where Europeans took a specific species of squirrel found in North America, the eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), back with them to England.
The rest of that quoted piece talks about that specific species of North American squirrel’s spread around other parts of North American.
Yeah you’re right, I totally read it backwards. 🤦
For us, they are invasive though: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/environment/plants-animals-and-ecosystems/invasive-species/alerts/easterngreysquirrel_alert.pdf
No worries!
deleted by creator
They have managed to invade my heart.
Humans are an invasive species, especially if you are a descendant of an English settler and not a native american indian
Truthfully they were also invasive. We’re only native to Africa
But when they arrived in the lands of North America, those lands were not inhabited by other human tribes
We’ve not talking about colonizing though, we’re discussing invasive species.
Given humanity (Homo Sapiens) is currently thought to have evolved in Africa, that is the natural human habitat. All other habitats we’ve created we can be thought of as an invasive species.
Please don’t virtue signal when it’s off topic like this, it’s really annoying.
Skill issue
Since people already answered the question, here’s some unrequested tip:
If you want mammals to avoid bird feed, mix some of the hottest chili powder and/or pepper seeds that you find into the feed. The birds won’t care, they don’t get pepper burned, but squirrels (and you) do.
Picture related:
Tried this and it didn’t faze the little fuckers. Going to take another pass at it, must have done something wrong.
Maybe they developed a taste for it?
It’s native in my chunk of South America. I almost never see those but I hear them often. I know them as sanhaço, but there are a bunch of local names.
The pepper plant is likely a wild malagueta. Almost as hot as habanero, but birds love it.
So cool, thank you for the added detail. I was wondering if it was a random picture illustrating your point, or a local bird. It’s both! Unfortunately for me, sanhaço are never up here in Northern Canada 🙂
It’s not my fault.
I’ve got my eye on you…
Not a boomer, don’t care for squirrels. They’re attic-hiding, wire-eating bastards. What the fuzzy-tailed rats don’t eat out if the bird feeder, they knock on the ground. I planted 12 cannabis seeds. Each time one sprouted it would disappear the next day with a tiny asshole paw-shaped scoop left in the dirt.
We don’t? Boomer with bird feeder who loves squirrels.
I don’t think it’s age related.
There’s a delightful little red squirrel sanctuary near me run by a couple who I would guess to be in the boomer generation. The wife fell ill and wound up almost permanently bedridden, so they moved to a house that would be easier for her and which also had some attached land they could use. The husband turned it into ideal squirrel territory and set up feeders by the window so that the squirrels would come visit his wife while she was stuck in bed
That sounds really neat.
My family rescued a tiny baby squirrel that had been chewed up by a cat when I was little. My parents didn’t think it would live, but also couldn’t see not trying. It did live, and when it was fully back to health they insisted that we let it go in the yard, but it stuck around - lived in our walnut trees - and was very tame. It would come in the house, play fetch with a wiffle ball, hang out on our shoulders, etc. It was amazingly cute.
I’m a Gen-Xer who hates birds and squirrels equally. So I guess I’m your antithesis?
Though I don’t hate any of them to the point of harming any of them. That would be too much effort.
You’re one of the good ones.
That’s the same thing racists say when they get to know a minority.
The way people talk about boomers here is pretty awful, and it wouldn’t be tolerated for any other group.
That’s not true, gen z is pretty awful as well.
It doesn’t matter your age, put up a bird feeder and you’ll soon hate squirrels. You spend $40 on a bag of seed and they’ll scoop out all the stuff that they don’t want to get to the stuff they do want. Seed on the ground attracts animals you don’t want like rodents or Canadian geese that shit all over. I found it easier to pay the squirrels off like the mafia. Buy a bag of corn or cheap peanuts and sprinkle some around to appease the bastards. It sucks but it’s worth it in the long run.
And then lace the corn with cyanide?
The Mark Rober episode that boomers need.
Fortunately for the squirrels, a hero has risen amongst them to fight you genocidal monsters, using the power of GUN.
Not a boomer and I don’t hate squirrels but one day I walked out onto the porch to have my morning coffee and a smoke and the fattest fuckin squirrel I’ve ever seen in my life was sitting there at eye level in the bird feeder staring back at me too satiated (or smug, I couldn’t tell) to move after having eaten all the feed for several days straight. I was refilling it daily which is unusual but I never thought I’d meet the culprit in this way.
It’s a thing.
Did you nod at each other, in silent acknowledgment?
Basically. If I remember it right I just had my smoke and went inside and later when it had waddled back to whence it came, I hung the feeder in a different place. The squirrel was well fattened for winter. The birds not so much.
I disagree with the premise. Not every boomer hates squirrels. Not even every boomer with a bird feeder.
I normally don’t care for broad strokes like this either, but his statement was that every boomer with a bird feeder hated them, so it wasn’t all boomers. (So I’d say still broad, but a bit better than what you responded as them saying)
That said, squirrels where I was from are much more scarce than they once were. The acorns are still around, but the animals… Slowly disappearing.
The title talks about boomers in general. Only in the subtext is it specified to mean the ones with birdfeeders.
I feel like you don’t understand the relationship between a title and the body text.
And I think you don’t like admiting it’s bit of an clickbait title.
My comment was very clear; I disagree with both, the assumption made in the title and I equally disagree with it after reading the subtext. Implying all boomers with birdfeeders hate squirrels is over-generalization.
It’s a quick title that leads into more detail in the body, as titles often do. I think you’re just regarded AF.
Yeah, I know how clickbait titles work. “Who do boomers with birdfeeders hate squirrels so much” would’ve been the accurate and non-clickbait version of this one. It’s no different from a news headline saying “USA will ban ICE cars by the year 2035” and then in the article itself it specifies that it’s about the sale of new cars.
That’s besides the point anyway. My argument equally addresses the over-generalization made in the body, which you conveniently ignore and focus on defending the title and attacking me as a person rather than what I’m saying, ad hominem.
Every boomer with a bird feeder hates squirrels.
That is an absolute statement claiming that every single boomer with a bird feeder hates squirrels. Not 50% of them, not 80%, not 99%, not 99.999% but 100% of them. That is an over generalization which I disagree with which leads us back to my original comment; I disagree with the premise. Not every boomer hates squirrels. Not even every boomer with a bird feeder.
Not reading your disgruntled wall of text, just blocking you. Go scream into a pillow.
Not a boomer, but squirrels are pretty much just tree rats that make loud noises, could be the cause.
Loud noises? The only noise I’ve heard a squirrel make is the “Tsk, tsk, tsk” -sound while agressively staring me down and whipping their tail and it’s not by any means loud.
The squirrels where I live are noisy as hell, they chirp nonstop
Their mating call in the fall when they lookin for that squssy is a WILD sound
They are of the order rodentia, but so are capybara and everyone loves those. So I think you’re incorrect.
I love squirrels but Capybaras are the most different thing possible. I’ve played with some and they’re so mega chill, I can pet em and feed em by handing things to them… squirrels won’t even be on the same side of the tree as me.
They’re related, and blood doesn’t run.
They can be as related as they want, but squirrels run from me and capybaras let me love them. So that’s why capybaras are superior.
I still love squirrels.
I don’t hate them, but since grey ground squirrels are a primary vector for Bubonic plague in the southwest US, I prefer to keep them distanced.
Also don’t have a bird feeder, planted natives to provide food and habitat.
Not a boomer but the little bastards chewed through the propane line on my grill so now I throw rocks at em when I see them. They’re formally vermin in my eyes.
They destroy whatever they can. They chew cables, rip siding and nest in insulation. Make wherever they can smell of piss. If you try to grew anything edible they eat the sprouting fruit, nuts, and leaves then start eating the bark and kill the tree.
I bought a squirrel proof bird feeder pole thing
It works great, now I’m happy to watch the squirrels run around not eating my birds’ seed.
Only downside so far is some wasps built a nest inside and stung me. But they’re dead now.
I’m imagining that last line said with a thousand yard stare.
They’re destructive and difficult to deter. If squirrel hate is more common among Boomers, it’s probably because they’ve lived long enough to find this out firsthand.
Well said. Not a boomer, but I’ve come to hate the destructive little fuckers and periodically go on an extermination binge. Chewing wires off, making holes in the siding and soffits to store their stuff, they have earned my undying hatred.
Besides, red squirrels are the largest predator of baby rabbits.
Put chili peppers in your bird feed. Birds aren’t affected by the capsicum like mammals are.
