The flock spent most of the winter being angry with me. They appreciate neither the cold nor the snow. I had to carry one Sapphire Gem hen back to the aviary after dusk; she was too cold and tired after spending a day in the orchard to make it back on her own. The guineas spent a night outside in the orchard after a bad storm, not wanting to sink into the snow even to go home. Fortunately, the fox also spent the night hunkered down, not wanting to sink into the snow. A chicken hawk took out a guinea nine feet away from the aviary, nine feet away from safety.
Cluck Cluck the rooster prefers hanging out with the guineas instead of with his hens.
Cluck Cluck spent more than one afternoon standing in the heated water of the bird bath; his toes, mangled by a raccoon when he was young, are probably hurting. When I let the water run dry, a fox curled up in the same bird bath at dusk, absorbing its warmth and making me moderately nervous.
Enjoying the first dustbath of the year.
With the marginally and intermittently warmer weather, the guineas have been boiling out of the aviary every morning with Cluck Cluck. Sometimes the hens join them, sometimes they don’t. Laying has picked up with the longer days. I am getting an egg or two every day from the hens, and I usually manage to snag the eggs before they crack from the subzero temperatures. If I don’t, I set them out for the fox. Everyone needs to eat.
January 21 is National Squirrel Day. If you already have a bird feeder, you know that every day is squirrel day. To celebrate squirrels, here are a few more things we can do for our furry friends:
Set out some grapes, cashews, and pecans.
Add a year-round water source.
If it is snowy or wet, put your treats out a board to let the animals have dry feet for a bit.
Add selectively tasty compost scraps, such as sweet potato peels and apple peels.
A year and a half ago, I raised an orphaned grey squirrel, born around July 21, 2019. Later that fall, he vanished. It’s not unusual for young squirrels to move out and establish their own territories. Squirrel kits born late season often overwinter with their mom. As his mom, I had hoped he would stick around. I made him a nice nest box, filled the feeder tray regularly, and visited him at least twice a day.
One morning, he was gone. I said he was on walkabout, experiencing the world. What squirrel doesn’t dream of driving his motorcycle down the Pacific Coast Highway 1? But odds were equally good he had been taken out by a red-tailed hawk, a great-horned owl, a raccoon, or even a mink.
I went outside to feed the flock on December 23, 2020 and a squirrel came running up and jumped right into the middle of the flock, scattering the birds. It made me laugh, he was so bold. I knew immediately it was Terrence Nutworthy the Third.
This is the point where people say, “uh-huh.”
My case that this really is Terrence:
-Fox squirrels have lived in my woods longer than I have, but I have never seen a grey squirrel in the yard. The grey squirrels are around in the forest, of course, but the fox squirrels keep them out of the yard itself.
-Both Terrence and this squirrel have a little dark scar under their left eye.
-A wild squirrel, when confronted by a human, should run up the nearest branch, and will likely chatter fiercely. This is what my yard squirrels still do, despite generations having grown up with me as a fixture in their lives. A wild squirrel will not literally ask for a human handout. Which this squirrel did. He came right up and ate out of my hand.
As if my day couldn’t get any better, Terrence brought a rare black squirrel with him. Black squirrels are really grey squirrels with different fur color (melanistic subgroup). The black squirrel, being a wild squirrel, wants nothing to do with me.
I immediately purchased an addition for my yard for Terrence:
Winter is hard on wildlife. Obviously, animals have adapted and populations can survive without us. But the heated waterer will make survival a little bit easier, and possibly more enjoyable for everyone, including the squirrels, opossums, deer, mice, song birds, and fox. It may even enable me to get a decent picture of the black squirrel.
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