Crafty critters

For weeks myself and himself have been noticing weird patches of disturbed grass and earth in the garden around the bird feeders.
By Olga Bradshaw
Published 25th Jun 2014, 12:03 BST

Puzzled by the phenomenon, we had blamed the seed husks and small birds for tramping around on the ground ‘hoovering’ up the titbits that fall from the feeders...until we discovered there are two culprits, both of which are guilty of stealing.

Staggered by the problem-solving skills of a grey squirrel (pet named Sammy) we were even more surprised and delighted to discover the jays I had got out of bed at 5am to film last year were now regular visitors to the garden and a lot less skittish.

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The squirrel has discovered (and yesterday has now broken) the nut feeder and discovered how to access the fat and seed balls that were once the sole domain of the small garden birds.

More than that, we discovered that he was in part responsible for the damage to the grass as he was burying his stash of stolen peanuts in the ground under the feeder.

Craftier by far, however, are the jays. Every time Sammy left the feeder the jays were swooping down, digging up and feasting on the nuts buried in the ground. Before this the nuts were inaccessible for them because they were in the feeders which are suitable for birds with small beaks.

The fact that Sammy has also learned to lift the feeders off the pegs and has managed to break a couple open on the ground also helped the jays access the nuts. The downside is that later today yours truly at the behest of himself (Ronnie) is going to have to buy more feeders - some squirrel proof ones - to replace the damaged feeders.

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In the meantime here’s a short video to watch of the squirrel burying his cache and a jay digging them up... crafty critters...

Oh, by the way, the reason there is a container in the background containing the remnants of some living lettuce is because Ronnie and I were actually hoping to record some footage of a leveret that we have in the garden (Harry Hare)... it was the jays and the squirrel that we got instead. We have managed to get some footage of Harry, which I will post shortly - as well as a video of me sneaking up on Sammy which he was burying nuts (I got within 10 feet of him amazingly).