I have a squirrel that I can hand feed pecans! She stares at me from the tree outside until I take her out a couple pecans, then she will take one from my fingertips and eats it while sitting on a knot on the tree. Here is a video.
Yes, her right ear is mangled. I suspect she had ear mites and scratched it up. And yes, I know she is a female, and has had kits. When squirrels are stretched out to feed on corn it is easy to tell gender.
My squirrels are getting bold. I walked out to fill the corn holders and a momma squirrel stayed just on the other side of the tree while I loaded, then came to eat before I walked away. The photo below was taken with my phone with no zoom. She was about three feet away from me.
My eldest gave me a bird feeder that looks like a little picnic table for Mother’s Day (I *may* have laid out some heavy hints). It came rigged to be hung, but after trying it that way for a couple days, I decided to mount it to the tree.
The tray serves a dual purpose, both as entertainment (although the squirrels don’t have proper table manners), and to catch the corn the squirrels drop from the spinning corn holder (which doesn’t spin when they eat off of it, but does hold 5 ears of corn). The squirrels drop the corn after they eat the tip off and discard the rest of the yellow part of the corn kernel.
I hadn’t even finished putting new corn cobs on the squirrel-go-round when a squirrel came down to investigate.
This one has a notch out of the right ear. She may have earned herself a name.
Our dried corn cob holder for the squirrels broke, so I found a replacement. It has screw eyes to hold five cobs on a rotating hub.
The lightest corn cob is the easiest for the squirrels to strip off kernels, as it is right at the top of the wheel. Then it gets more challenging to get at the kernels on the other cobs. The squirrels figured it out, though, and cleaned off every cob. They did shoot me annoyed looks.
Happy Mother’s Day to all that get the eye roll from those you nurture.
