Saturday, March 12, 2011

Choosing your battles

Do you ever see the little red squirrels in your backyard? I had a couple that were regular visitors last summer and now that the weather's gotten a little milder around here, at least one has started showing up again. I usually sprinkle a little bit of birdseed on the ground for my ground-feeding birdies and the squirrels always are quick to take advantage of this readily available bounty. But hey, look who else likes it too! Look out little red squirrel!
I was anxious to see what was going to happen here once the crow arrived. My red squirrels are quite selfish and usually quick to chase off any other hungry visitors -- especially the much larger gray squirrels.

Here you see though, the crow prevailed. I think the crow was maybe looking forward to more of an argument from Little Red, but it wasn't going to happen this morning.......

.......and Little Red quickly moved over to the next closest birdseed pile on the ground, alongside some smaller and more aggreeable companions.

8 comments:

Dave Dorsey said...

LOL! Nice post!

KGMom said...

Nature frequently has the most instructive lessons for us, no?
No need to fight when you can just move over.

Gaelyn said...

Smart Little Red. And nice shots of an fun interaction in nature.

Kay said...

Great story in photos! Ha ha. At first I thought maybe that bird was a raptor coming after the squirrel, but nope. Thanks for sharing! ANd your snow is melting!

Birdsong said...

Great photos!

RuthieJ said...

Thanks Dave.

You got that right Donna! I'm glad Little Red was smart enough to know what to do (plus there's plenty of food all over my backyard!)

Thanks Gaelyn.

Thanks Kay. Snow was almost gone -- now we're all white again!

Thanks Birdsong.

Jackie K said...

I just discovered your blog today while searching for ways to discourage blackbirds from my feeders.Your blog is a real treat! You take beautiful photographs too. I came across a pic of you feeding a hummingbird out of your hand...so jealous! I am just getting into the blogoshpere and yours is an inspiration. Thank you.

RuthieJ said...

Hi Mrs. Kascht,
Welcome to my blog and thank you for your kind words.
Common grackles are hard to discourage and I've pretty much given up. Now I just lure them away from the feeders close to the house with less expensive seed in the tray feeders.....then by early July their numbers decline significantly as they take their offspring and head out to nearby farm fields.
Have fun with blogging!