Gray Squirrel Thermometer

[graham-xrf]

I know this takes the thing a bit beyond squirrels and snakes, but consider - elephants!
On the road to Kariba (Zimbabwe side), for some reason, they like to hang around in little crowds on the tar road in the early evening. You can find yourself somewhat too close to them very easily. Some folk just hoot them out of the way, but I can say outright, that is very risky!

My problem with these gatherings was not so much when they were there, but after they were gone. To hit a pile of elephant doo-doo in limited light at 50mph is not trivial! You gag on the appalling stench, and there is little choice but to find the nearest place where one can hose down the car, especially the underside and front suspension parts.

Here in UK, there are the squirrels, but the main roadkill risk seems to be suicidal pheasants.

 

[mmcmdl]

Studies have shown that they will recover up to 60% of the more than 5,000 nuts that they bury each year, locating them under six inches of snow. I have trouble remembering where I put the wrench I was using five minutes ago.

I'll have to use that line in at work ! Very funny and true .

 

[Janderso]

Ospreys and the occasional bald eagle

I love watching Ospreys catch fish.
Klamath California is one of our favorite places to RV. There are plenty of bald eagles and Osprey. It seems the Ospreys fish and the bald eagles try to steal their catch. Fortunately the Osprey can out fly a bald eagle.
In my experience watching Baldies, they are scavengers.
Beautiful Birds!!
I'm sure glad they came back after the DDT use. It was very rare to see one back in the 60's and 70's as I recall.

 

[FOMOGO]

Just relocated a pack-rat this morning. Ran into him while up in the attic of the shop yesterday, preparing to run some more conduit. Really have to finish up the soffit, but it's been so smokey I've been putting it off until it clears up. Setup the live trap, baited with a small piece of pork, and some shiny, and colored bits of hardware, which they seem to like better than food. The rattle snakes have been more plentiful this year also. Came out to the shop one morning and saw a swallow sitting on the ground by the garage door. Something I've never seen before. Started talking softly to him, and after a while he flew off. As I turned to enter the man door three feet in front of me, there sat a prairie rattler all coiled up and ready to strike. After dispatching him, I noticed he didn't have any rattles. I think he may have lost them in the junk pile next to the door. Now for the weird part. The next morning I came down to the closed up shop, and inside the first bay, sitting on the floor was what appeared to be the same swallow I met the day before. Thanked him for his intervention the day before, opened the big door, and off he went, never to be seen again. That same day the wife was out trimming trees, and after finishing one side of a big spruce, and going around to the other side, she spotted another rattler that she had apparently been standing right next to. She came and got me, and I killed him. If I see rattlers on the road, or off my property I leave them be, but on the property, they have to go. Mike

 

[cwilliamrose]

........ Ground squirrels aren't true squirrels, they're rodents and deserve to be eaten.

I believe all squirrels are rodents.

Our gray squirrels respond well to the car horn when they're foraging in the driveway but they only do that when the trees have nothing to offer.

 

[Nutfarmer]

A squirrel can bury 5,000 nuts! At 5 cents a piece that's 250 dollars per squirrel . This is all out war. I have been lax on keeping the squirrel population down. That ends tomorrow. The rodinator comes out. It pumps a mixture of propane and oxygen down the squirrel hole and then sets it off. Pictures to follow. No gray squirrels ( tree squirrels) are hurt only ground squirrels. It basically blows up the squirrel hole.

 

[RJSakowski]

A squirrel can bury 5,000 nuts! At 5 cents a piece that's 250 dollars per squirrel . This is all out war. I have been lax on keeping the squirrel population down. That ends tomorrow. The rodinator comes out. It pumps a mixture of propane and oxygen down the squirrel hole and then sets it off. Pictures to follow. No gray squirrels ( tree squirrels) are hurt only ground squirrels. It basically blows up the squirrel hole.

I am interested in seeing your results. I don't have problem with ground squirrels but I do with moles. Home Depot sells a concoction that gasses the critters. https://www.homedepot.com/p/AMDRO-Gopher-Gasser-6-Pack-100525532/203031283 Another brand is this: https://store.doyourownpestcontrol.com/giant-destroyer-smoke-bombs-gas
Looking at the ingredients, they are essentially black powder smoke bombs that fill the tunnels with a toxic gas.

The gray squirrels are responsible for a proliferation of black walnut trees on the property. we don't collect the nuts so their harvesting them isn't a problem. Up on the hills above us, they collect a lot of acorns, competing with turkeys and deer. They are also wiote efficient at collecting hickory nuts and if you want any, you have to be rather quick in order to get them.

 

[Nutfarmer]

RJSakowski I never have had any luck with the gas bombs like you describe. The flood irrigation keeps them out of the main part of the orchard,but they proliferate around the outside. The best control was inviting over a few friends for a day of shooting. We stopped that when lead ammunition was band. Most type of traps and poison are also band. So we will try the propane. The California University Extention advises that each squirrel does an estimated fifty dollars a year damage in a walnut orchard. Tree squirrels and crows are now game animals with seasons and limits. I wonder when rats will be a protected species.

 

[RJSakowski]

Every day it seems there is another reason not to live tn California.
AFAIK, there is no commercial farming of nuts in Wisconsin. IMO, black walnut meat is superior to English walnut's but it is very difficult to cleanly extract the nut meat. Although the squirrels know how to do it. When I was young, we had several butternut trees in the yard and we would harvest them. The technique was to hit the end of the nut with a hammer. If lucky, it would break cleanly and then we would extract the nut meat in pieces with a pick. The process usually took a day or so to extract a pound or two of nut meat for my Mom's baking. Child labor was cheap back then.

 

[RJSakowski]

BTW, we were able to harvest the nuts because my Dad kept a loaded .22 in the breezeway about forty feet from the trees and we ate a lot of squirrel in the fall. We also had a dog loose on the property.