Squirrel for Dinner

[Uncle Peter]

This cheeky little fellow has been popping in for breakfast lately and dismantling my bird feeders. Today he decided to drop by for a bit of dinner and I happened to have the camera handy.

[Halcyon]

They are very talented !
I have some in the garden that climb up the bird table or tree, hang by their tail, and eat the nuts and food dangling for the birds below too.

[Shaun]

My grandad would pop round and shoot it for you if you asked.

He's done in nine so far, bloody over run with them. You think, "aaaarrrrrrrrr, cute", until they break all your bird feeders, eat all your bulbs and generally trash your garden with all their children!!!

Originally Posted by Shaun

My grandad would pop round and shoot it for you if you asked.

He's done in nine so far, bloody over run with them. You think, "aaaarrrrrrrrr, cute", until they break all your bird feeders, eat all your bulbs and generally trash your garden with all their children!!!

They also raid birds nests & eat the eggs - and make Mrs Gaz mad because they bury stuff in her patio pots & then dig out the pot looking for it, later.

We managed to get a humane trap for the one that decided to live in our loft - but not before it had chewed nearly every cardboard box we had up there

[Uncle Peter]

It's been having a dig in the blashford gravel at the borders of my patio and scattering the stones all over the place as well. One of the local buzzards might have it before long though

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by homealone

They also raid birds nests & eat the eggs - and make Mrs Gaz mad because they bury stuff in her patio pots & then dig out the pot looking for it, later.

We managed to get a humane trap for the one that decided to live in our loft - but not before it had chewed nearly every cardboard box we had up there

My grandad borrowed one from a farmer he knows. He caught one and in the hour it took him to get home to take it up the fields it escaped!

Originally Posted by Shaun

My grandad borrowed one from a farmer he knows. He caught one and in the hour it took him to get home to take it up the fields it escaped!

indeed, we let 'our' one go in the local woods - we are fairly sure he/she didn't come back because it wore its head bald trying to escape, before we set it free - so we'd have been able to recognise it

[greencreeper]

They can be quite vicious - just look at the feet! I was thinking of building a bird table for my garden - no sign of squirrels but quite a variety of birds.

[joglynne]

I used to find the antics of the squirrels in our garden very amusing until a couple of weeks ago when they destroyed the blackbirds nest hidden away in the wisteria on my wall.
Now I could justthe lot of them.

[Hom3r]

I know you can eat grey squirrels (I think they have a health warning "May contain nuts")

[snodvan]

Dad bought one of those humane squirrel traps (sort of big cage with a trapdoor). Superb once you get the hang of setting the trip mechanism. In an ordianary suburban small garden he was catching 1 per day over a week and a half but then the numbers declined quite rapidly until it was one a month - now there are hardly any and they scoot rapidly along the back fence without stopping. Do you think the little buggers have LEARNED to avoid his garden? Suppose it is possible.

We used to take them about 4 miles to the local park (heavy wooded) and then release them. I believe that is actually illegal ie they are classed as vermin so you are not allowed to release them, you are supposed to kill them.

A decade or so ago I had a colleague who set out to shoot (*) a few squirrels and try them in a pie. He did that but was not impressed by the pie.

(*) Shooting squirrels is not easy if you want enough left to eat. My colleague told me the way to do it was to hit the branch they were sitting on rather than the squirrel itself - enough so it would be stunned and fall to the ground 'for collection'.

[lowhydrogen]

didn't there used to be a bounty for killing grey squirrels?

[Mr_love_monkey]

Originally Posted by Shaun

My grandad would pop round and shoot it for you if you asked.
You think, "aaaarrrrrrrrr, cute", until they break all your bird feeders, eat all your bulbs and generally trash your garden with all their children!!!

..and they stole my wallet!

[popper]

Originally Posted by Hom3r

I know you can eat grey squirrels (I think they have a health warning "May contain nuts")

get yourself a family of foxs like we have around here, they soon see off or rather finish off the pesky greys .

[marky]

Shoot the bloody thing, the greys are vermin