A Wild Heist

Marauders at midnight

The North wind doth blow,
And we shall have snow,
And what will poor robin do then, poor thing?

He'll sit in a barn,
And keep himself warm,
And hide his head under his wing, poor thing.

- A 16th century poem, inserted here from the Words for Life site

A sparrow flies over and sounds the low food alert. Time to fill the feeder.

Pandemonium reigns. Tweet decibels climb steadily in the gray morning. There’s a streak of white winter precipitation on the street and something is still falling gently. It looks like sleet. No wonder the birds are in a panic. The feeder sways lazily as finches and sparrows dart about, fussing at each other, grabbing scanty millet grains, the last remnants of the mix I emptied into the feeder just a couple of afternoons ago.

Tabby receives the distress signal from the sparrow and relays it to me.

A sparrow hustles to the bare branches of the willow, demanding replenishment. Tabby receives the signal and relays it to me as I shuffle around the kitchen filling kitty bowls with food and water. It will be a few hours before I can fill the feeder. I am plumb out of everything except nyjer seed. I check the finch feeder. It’s pretty full and a few birds are hard at it.

Juncos, who are ground feeders, placidly munch on what the other birds spill.

The juncos are calm. They hop around and gorge themselves, preparing for the wintry mix to follow. The feeder birds are messy, so there’s plenty of food on the ground.

A couple of afternoons ago, I fill the feeder and step away. The minute I’m back inside, birds flock to it in an endless stream. The next morning, the feeder is empty. The birds make a valiant effort to empty it but surely they’re not THAT voracious!?

Until last night, there was an unsolved mystery. An endless routine. I fill the bird feeder, birds flock to it like there’s no tomorrow, seed disappears at a steady rate. Then phoom! Overnight, the feeder is empty. In the morning, there are the sparrows or finches at the kitchen window, filing their noisy complaints. “Feed us,” they chirp, “we need sustenance now!” The next chance I get, I refill the feeder and the cycle repeats.

Each time the feeder is filled, squirrels scurry up and down the tree, strategizing. There’s a dome baffle over the feeder which is supposed to keep the varmints away. Have they figured out a way around it? In the past, I’ve seen them jump across from the tree trunk, body slam the feeder, then run to the ground to feast on what falls. A few weeks ago, I repositioned the feeder as far away from the tree trunk as I could. Skilled acrobats though they are, there’s no way those bushy-tailed rodents jumped that far.

The only other beasts that frequent my yard are bunnies, probably hunkered down in their burrows at this time of year, a lone red fox who slinks around past the patio and a herd of deer that clomp around, leaving large, telling footprints in their wake as they make mincemeat of my potted plants. Are those cervine menaces getting back at me for putting chickenwire cages around the pansies? Would they eat birdseed, though?

“Must be squirrels,” says Jyotsna, when I mention this to her. “At night, though?” I wonder. We shrug our shoulders. Later, driving home, I get my answer. There, as I approach the driveway, are two does. Two guiltier faces I have never seen. They wander off with sheepish grins. “I’ll show them,” I think. “Pepper-infused birdseed. That should do it.” We shall see.

Lacking photographic evidence, I enclose a courtroom sketch of the alleged perps.