Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for January 14, 2012

I’m not sure which new skill impresses me more – the trapeeze work, the juggling or writing the sign!Ah, I always loved flying squirrels.

Yet another variation on the old “shell game.”

NUTS ONLY…….OR WE WILL BOLT.

Oh, come on. Only 3 balls? I mean, really. Now, if it were flaming torches I might be willing to shell out a bag of Planters unsalted…

What – no elephants?

I’m phoning it in today. Call ya later.

You should see the act that the raccoons are putting on down the street. But they will rob you blind.

This also makes me think of the difference between beer nuts and deer n#ts. Beer nuts are $1.99 a bag and the deer n#ts are always just under a buck.

@TheTrustedMechanicI used to have a couple “squirrel-proof” feeders on shepard’s crooks in my back yard. The weight of a squirrel on the perch would close off the seed supply. It was amazing to see them get so frustrated; I watched one for half an hour, and when he couldn’t get to the bird mixture… he just sat atop the feeder and peed all over it,...Later on them tree-rats learned that by jumping up and down on the roof of the feeder, they could shake most of the bird feed out of it and onto the ground. That’s when I quit feeding the birds. You cannot win a battle against them critters!.(I don’t want to even discuss what they did to my expensive “Droll Yankee” thistle-seed finch feeders).

Amazing! Nobody managed to turn this into a political discussion!

As Freud said, “sometimes a comic strip is just a comic strip”. (Not Sigmund Freud, it was his cousin Charles.)

Will Work For Nuts.

they live in trees people. of course they are natural born acrobats.

We have several bird feeders, that my wife put out. One evening, as I was sitting out on the porch, a bear cub wandered up, and started to climb the shepherds hook, bending it flat over on the ground, and ate all the bird seed he could get to.Thinking that the local Vermont Fish and Wildlife folks, might want to know about my sighting, we called and were informed that we don’t have a bear problem. The bears have a people problem. We are in their habitat, and should not put out birdseed except during the winter, when the bears are hibernating.

I love to watch the “adaptability” of squirrels to bird feeders. I admire the ingenuity of coyotes in survival. One of the best I’ve seen is a clip on youtube of a good sized bear, crossing a large gap, on an aircraft cable, to get at, and empty, a bird feeder. Of course, having been around decades of folks trying to devise “bear proof” or other “critter proof” devices, one REALLY has to question the I.Q. of “lesser critters”- namely, humans.

Richard, so true. I have mastered the art of keeping squirrels away from bird seed. (My cat calls it bait!) Ten foot high T shaped metal 1/2 in pipe. A baffle, half way up, that they can’t get around. Something about the size of a garbage can lid, with a hole punched in it, and held up by whatever means works. I use duct tape (Of course I do, I’m a guy..). I rap it around the metal pole below the baffle, until it’s wider than the hole, so it doesn’t slid back down the pole…and yet can tip freely…Completely solves the problem…almost. There’s one that climbs up the tree in the front of the house, runs over to the other side and jumps at the feeders from above, landing perfectly on the 1/2 inch cross bar. Then he lowers himself slowly, to put one paw at the center of the baffle, the only spot that is stable and can hold his weight. Like a mountain climber, he keeps three paws engaged at all times……then with a twist of his back he can have his way with my feeders…..Since the feeders are well under the edge of the roof, just for that reason, it makes me marvel at how he does it. And I’ve seen him do it. I used to tap on the window to get him to scoot, but I figure he’s earned it. He’s not just any squirrel, I let him eat out of respect. Of course that means I’ve gone from being the most anti-sqirrell feeder of birds on the planet, to raising a race of super sqirrels….Bwaaa ha ha ha ha ….. ah…….

Richard s Russel, I ’ve seen a commercially available feeder that has a spring-loaded sliding outer shell that stays put when a bird perches on it, but the weight of a squirrel causes the shell, perch and all to slide down and close the seed slot. squirrels never get anything out of it. Mice, however……

I was going to say something stupid about squirrels without nuts, squirrels with nuts and flaming squirrels. But the comments have been too good. You don’t need another,..So instead, I’ll just go get a nice dog and yell.SQUIRREL!!!!!

No Sunday strip?