One reader warned me that the presence of nut trees in my yard would attract super-macho squirrels who drive out sissy squirrels. The super-squirrels are strong enough and smart enough to defeat most anti-squirrel measures. We have oak trees with an abundance of acorns, so our squirrels are strong, fearless, and clever.
We are also blessed with raccoons, the suet thieves, and many other creatures. We live in an ideal area for birds, with trees in the back, grass in the front, and a creek nearby. Deer may lope through the ravine at any moment, sending the dogs into a frenzy.
The best overall bird food is sunflower seed. Many will argue for black oil sunflower seeds because they are smaller and full of oil for keeping birds warm in the winter. Sunflower seeds attract more species than any other seed, and squirrels love them. I used to grow sunflowers in the yard, where squirrels would harvest the flowers early or wait for the seeds to form and ride the seedheads while eating. Squirrels are great acrobats. Their eyes are more the split image viewfinder used in old cameras. That is why they can judge distances so well. Their flying leaps may miss many times, but once they have the distance, a weak birdfeeder is theirs.
Readers may judge for themselves whether the special squirrel eye evolved or was created. I mentioned Creation on Facebook and riled a number of my friends, who wanted to put in a good word for God working through evolution. If I sat down at a pipe organ, I might play Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, after a few million notes, but only if the right ones were selected after the fact. Some of my friends do not grasp Creation reflected in the infinite dependencies of nature.
A squirrel without special distance measuring eyes would be a kamikaze pilot.
The squirrels have their corn feeder, and they swirl around the tree, competing for a place at the table.
We have regular cardinals visitors now, husband and wife. Mrs. I. agrees that the female is even prettier than the male. She may do more of the nesting since she would blend in so well.
The blue jay is not really blue but refracts the light with its feathers. In the shelter of a bush, a blue jay blends perfectly with mottled light.
One of the best learning experiences for children is to have bird food on their window sills (outside of course). They will see birds and squirrels enjoy the treats and grow accustomed to their company through the glass.
Some common treats are any kind of fruit, nuts, fruit jelly, seeds, bread products, popcorn, field corn, and fat. Most mothers would probably not appreciate their sills dripping with fat or looking like the results of a food fight at a frat house. However, the treats can be dispensed in a neat, orderly way. We used a plastic silverware tray for a long time. Its perforations allowed water to pass through. We bought peanuts in the shell to dispense.
In Midland, the blue jay would take his bath in the warmed bird bath on the back steps. Next he landed on the silverware tray set up at eye level outside the kitchen window. If food was not there, he fluffed out his feathers and screamed at me, "Jay! Jay!" He flew off while I tossed bread or peanuts into the tray. Then he came back to eat, still wet and not yet blue.
When he was dry and blue again, he announced my trips to the back yard with his clarion bell sound. That was his way of saying thanks.
"Early in the morning it rises, sits upon a twig and sings a song it has learned, while it knows not where to obtain its food, and yet it is not worried as to where to get its breakfast. Later, when it is hungry, it flies away and seeks a grain of corn, where God stored one away for it, of which it never thought while singing, when it had cause enough to be anxious about its food. Ay, shame on you now, that the little birds are more pious and believing than you; they are happy and sing with joy and know not whether they have anything to eat." Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed. John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, V, p. 114.
I put that quotation in my religion classrooms. Students said, "I never thought of that. I will stop worrying so much."
