Every boomer with a bird feeder hates squirrels. I don’t understand.
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Maybe because ‘bird feeder’ implies they are trying to feed birds?
I really hated the possums in my old neighborhood because they would always crawl into the soffit and have babies, destroy things I could not afford to fix, and poop stinky poop in my attic. But in my new slightly bougier neighborhood the possums are so cute and just run around eating bugs. Rats I can’t bring myself to hate, and squirrels just seem like cute fluffy rats. So I can’t hate them but goddam it I have never harvested even one fully ripe tomato because they destroy them. I do hate that.
Squirrels eat the bird food meant for the birds and are extremely hard to stop
They make a bird feeder called ‘Squirrel Buster’ which is fairly squirrel proof. I still put out food for them though, squirrels gotta eat too.
This. I found the squirrels to leave the bird feeders and the garden alone if you leave them a danegeld of raw peanuts and maybe strap an ear of corn to the tree.
You sometimes have to be careful with corn… I picked up some cheap bird food with corn in it, the squirrels got into it and buried kernels all around the yard. My wife just about went crazy yanking corn sprouts out of our and the neighbors yard! 😄
Free corn tho
I do this, but I’ve got a wood chip yard except for where plants are.
Guess where the little bastards bury their peanuts?
In your corn-hole?
🎵 Oh strap an ear of corn, to the old oak tree… 🎵
I just watched “o brother where art thou”. Soggy bottom boys got a new hit
🎵 I-he-yahi am an ear, of corn and sorrow. I’ve seen squirrels, all my days…🎶
I buy in shell peanuts for wildlife and the squirrels love them. They bury them all round the property which is fun to watch. On Nextdoor I occasionally find posts from people trying to figure out where all these peanut shells are coming from in my neighborhood.
And then you go put more peanuts out, I assume
I buy peanuts 50 pounds at a time, same with black oil sunflower weeds. Nature loves them both. Our backyard is full of natural weeds, bunnies, squirrels, chipmunks and many varieties of birds
My neighbor does this and I hate them. I have peanut shells all over my property. I can’t walk barefoot because there’s so fucking many shells.
They’re in my drains. They’re in my flower and veggie beds. Birds pick them up and take them to my roof and try to crack them at 6am.
I HATE HATE HATE my peanut throwing neighbors.
Hi neighbor
Hey there
Why are the squirrels second class citizens to the birds? Is there a bird food shortage?
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.
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 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 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?
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.
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
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
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
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.
They have managed to invade my heart.
Skill issue
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
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.
Non-boomer here, I hate squirrels.
If you try to grow your own vegetables, you too will come to hate squirrels. I promise. Ageism need not apply to squirrel hate or vegetable enthusiasm.
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.
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.
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
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.
Their mating call in the fall when they lookin for that squssy is a WILD sound
A lot of boomers are really particular about well-manicured yards, pristine gardens, etc. Squirrels do not help with this.
I love seeing little divots where our squirrels bury nuts. If they eat some of our plants, then I put a cage around it or plant new ones. Seeing the little guys play and eat the food we put out for them far outweighs any minor landscaping problems they cause.
The squirells empty the bird feeders much faster than the birds would so the boomer then has to refill it sooner. Rinse and repeat until they constantly talk about the squirrels. My parents bought my grandfather a slingshot for his squirrel problem/hatred and the dude took off part of his own thumbnail and had to go to an urgent care.
I admit I laughed at the end.
My grandpa took issue with the seagulls harassing everything else in his backyard, so he bought a slingshot and shot them with grapes “They don’t get hurt by a squishy grape, they get scared and the pigeons are happy about the grapes”
I’m in my 30s and now also hate squirrels because of this very reason. They will empty an entire bird feeder in a single afternoon and the shit’s expensive. We like to keep it stocked so our cats have some excitement to watch out the window.
Also, a bird built a nest in the tree right next to the feeder and squirrels came and ate through the bottom of the nest so they could eat the baby birds which was pretty horrific to discover.
My momma is 62 and loves her squirrels as well as her birds
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.
It’s not my fault.
I’ve got my eye on you…
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:
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 🙂
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?
My dad is a boomer and back when I was in high school he had a pet squirrel. It would sit on his shoulder while he worked. Eat walnuts out of his shirt pocket.
A lot of US defaultism going on in this thread. Americans (and perhaps British) talking about the North American grey squirrel as the incarnation of all squirrels, when people elsewhere in the world would have very different experiences with their local native squirrels, who act quite differently to those.
How DARE people answer a vague question with their own experiences!! Who’d guess that a question asked in English gets answers from people in predominantly English-speaking areas?! Fuck all these people for not discussing the habits of the Layards’s Palm Squirrel and why Sri Lankan boomers love/hate it!
Feel free to share your experiences.
For example?
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.
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.
