Um, so, what do we think of this product:
http://www.yankeeflipper.com?  Anyway, when I first heard about it, I was pretty darn tickled.

Growing up in SoCal, squirrels never seemed to be anything but furry and cute, but now that I’ve lived in the Boston area for 15 years, I have different appreciation for them.  Until the landlord/lady cut down the trees near our building (basically a triple decker), we had squirrels scrambling about in perhaps 4 walls, 1 floor and 2 sections of ceiling (we are on the top floor), with at least 2 nesting families.  I have never heard so many bizarre squirrel family noises - cooing, purring, all sorts of baby squirrel noises, and occassional squirrel squabbles - very intimate stuff!!!

Hey, I was also on Crooked Timber today and saw that Bérubé has a post up - I searched the comments, but our esteemed host here has not jumped into the fray.  I must say, I was kind of disappointed.  (Not saying, of course, that the squirrelly squabble that Bérubé wrassles with here should be any sort of priority for Sr. Clarke, but I’ve sort of grown accustomed to his chiming in, what with the WAAGNFNP stuff and all…)

I looked over the top of the saloon door at that thread. No way I’m going in there.

Synchronicity! I’ve got a post about squirrels coming up soon on WAAGNFP. Very much inspired by your writing and your nature-observing superpowers, Chris.

How I hate typing that acronym. I always have to stop and tick off the words on my fingers. I’m going to start calling it wjagcheiunWf,n (i.e., random keystrokes starting with “w”) instead.

And, see, I missed that dang second “n”: WAAGNFNP

I looked over the top of the saloon door at that thread. No way I’m going in there

Yes, insert 273+ prescritions for aiding or interfering with MB’s sleep here.

On the picture, I have a general question on the behavior of critters. Apparently the squirrel in question has “hacked” the controls on the feeder (assuming there is not a counterweight mechanism or somesuch that prevents him actually getting to the food, or that you put it there for the squirrels to use.) In my experience anytime one squirrel (or deer, groundhog etc.) has “hacked” a control mechanism (fencing, lids etc.), all of its physically-able cohort pick up the hack from that time on, never to forget, even beyond the lifetimes of individual animals. I have never had a feeder, deer fence etc. that once breached, was not forever compromised.

I was wondering if others had the same experience? (The expansion of foods they will eat seems to follow a similar path.)

As an example, I have very mature rhodedendon that no deer touched for 15 winters, mild or severe. Then during a very cold, snowy spell several year back they ate all they could reach. I fenced and it worked for 1 year. they then breached. I upgraded this year - lasted several months & then they breached during a several week snowy period. So now the situation is that they are working through a pretty good barrier to get to a food source that was ignored for years when it was freely available. Overall population pressure does not seem to be that much higher over the time period, nor is the weather that much more severe.

Am intrigued by the “cultural” evolution in evidence just within my suburban yard.