My Back Yard

Most of our backyard animals disappear when it rains. Not the sparrows. They’re visiting en masse, pecking at food on the ground or in the feeders.

What makes sparrows so much tougher than the squirrels? Are they hungrier? I’d like to learn the answer.

Poor Marjorie, the mourning dove. She’s standing with her wings raised. Every time she relaxes enough to peck at the bird seed, another grackle moves in.

Let Marjorie eat in peace, Mr. Grackle!

The squirrels had to tunnel through the snow to reach the nuts we threw on our back porch today. It has been snowing all weekend.

The Squirrel Log on our maple tree has been popular, with other food sources buried under the fluffy white stuff. I ventured out in the snow to replace it.

I also threw out some bird seed for my feathered friends.

Movement whooshed into the arborvitae ahead of the red fox running into my back yard. I think they were probably the sparrows who’d been noshing on bird seed a few minutes earlier. I hadn’t seen any squirrels yet that day.

The fox wasn’t the only predator of the past week. I also spotted the hawk up in a tree. The best way for me to scare it away: make noise by throwing a corn cob against the garage.

Iggy and I have got to protect our squirrels and birds.

The blue jays in “The blue jay vs. the squirrels,” an essay in The Christian Science Monitor, likes corn on the cob.

That’s not true for our blue jays. They focus on peanuts and will peck on birdseed.

Frozen solid. That’s been the status of our unheated bird bath all week. So I’m topping off our heated bird bath at least a couple times a day.

We’ve had more customers than usual at the heated bird bath. Liquid water is at a premium during this cold snap.

I’m sure the miscreant who stole my suet cage is among the drinkers. That’s okay. I know the little tree rat wasn’t tormenting me on purpose.

By the way, our local Home Depot was sold out of suet cages when Iggy visited this week. Maybe there has been a rash of thefts.

My suet cage is missing, along with the bungee that helped secure it to a shepherd’s hook.

The culprit has a fluffy tail. I’m sure of it.

Squirrels had ignored the suet over the summer and most of the fall. They left it to the woodpeckers and chickadees. But since our cold snap started, I’ve seen squirrels feeding on suet.

Usually suet cage thieves abandon the empty containers nearby. It’s almost as if they know that I’ll refill the cage, if I can find it. I took a quick look under the rhododendrons. No luck.

Note to Iggy: Put suet cage on the Home Depot shopping list, if it doesn’t turn up soon.

This morning the blue jays were feasting on the peanuts that Iggy left on the back porch. Nary a squirrel to be seen. I think they were sleeping in to avoid the rain.

You snooze, you lose, Mr. Squirrel!

A hawk looks majestic sitting on a branch of my maple tree.

But I can’t let it terrorize my squirrels and birds. So I throw corn cobs to scare it away.

My aim isn’t very good. I inadvertently discovered that I’m more likely to shoo the hawk by throwing the corn cob against the garage wall, which makes a loud noise, than by aiming at the hawk.

I got rid of the scary bird this way yesterday.

Tonight I stood on the lawn as I heard a whoosh and a hawk swooped by lower than I’d ever seen one before. It held something in its claws. Too hard to tell whether it was a bird or a squirrel or something else. White feathers fell on the patio as the hawk gained altitude. Its victim must have come from the part of our yard behind me, where the Squirrel Palace feeding station lies.

The squirrels and mourning doves feeding on the patio in front of me scattered in a heartbeat as the hawk revealed itself.

Iggy and I are sad. We lost a friend.