Talking to Squirrels . . . .

It was very quiet around the bird and squirrel feeding station the first few days of the past week. The black squirrels were busy eating, enjoying some salted peanuts that I bought on sale at a discount store and found to be too stale for my taste. I guess you get what you pay for. However, the nuts did not go to waste as squirrels seemed quite happy with them, even chasing away the rock doves who will eat anything – fresh or stale.

Jack, the red squirrel, and Gilles, the grey squirrel, did not show up until Wednesday. They both said they were busy at home and catching up on a little rest after the big debate. When I think about it, Stephen and Paul were not at the feeder either, just their black squirrel friends. I commented that the debate did not appear to be that strenuous an event, but perhaps I under-estimated the amount of passion that went into it.

Jack told me he was working in the Big Smoke area where his mate is running, lending support whenever he could. He thought they might to better this time, as the voters were getting a little tired of Paul’s Promises, a title they are applying to everything Paul and his workers say.

Gilles looked full of P & V when he dropped by on Wednesday morning for a quick snack of striped sunflowers seeds. He and Paul almost got into a scuffle, a carry-over from their exchange at the debate. Gilles challenged Paul to come across the creek and dare to repeat his remarks. When Paul backed down a little, Stephen seemed to come to his aid, saying he would cross the creek any time and debate Gilles. I soon realized that Stephen was not doing this for Paul’s welfare, but in the hope of persuading some of Gilles friends to vote for his party. Gilles, however, wanted nothing to do with this idea, so Paul and Stephen got into a shouting match over who should debate Gilles.

Things were getting entirely out of control when a pileated woodpecker flew onto a tree near the feeder. The pileated is a big bird and I suspect that the squirrels at first thought it was an eagle. They are still a little nervous about the eagle, especially after one of the eagle’s emissaries gave a lecture at a social club. The squirrels left for their homes, Paul and Stephen still yapping at each other as they jumped from limb to limb. In an aside, before he left, Jack said they were acting as if they were back in question period, wasting time and energy for nothing.

Wednesday afternoon my wife, who was wiping the counter in the kitchen, said, “Bill, there is one of your black squirrels looking at me through the window. I think he wants something.” It was Stephen, so I went downstairs to give him a peanut. But he only wanted to talk, although he did take the peanut with him when he left.

Stephen wanted to know what we people did to warn us of intruders at the north end of our country. Not much, I said. We drop sono-buoys into the water and monitor for the presence of foreign boats. When the sono-buoy beeps we know someone is in our territory. Asked what we did next, I admitted that we did nothing. No, we did not drop anything on the intruders to scare them away. It was enough to know that somebody was up there in the barrens.

Thursday morning the talk at the feeder was about Stephens’s plan to establish a cat-warning system at the north end of their property. The mere mention of a cat had all the tails twitching. If elected leader, he would implement a peano-buoy program. Each day two squirrels would have to give one peanut each to the program. These peanuts would be dropped in the snow near Norman the Cat’s house. The blue jays would be watching where the squirrels put their peanuts, as usual. The jays would go back to get the peanuts after the squirrels left. However, if the jays saw Norman the Cat, they would squawk a warning and all the squirrels in the area could climb a tree until danger passed.

Thursday afternoon the two black squirrels and the grey squirrel were still nattering away at each other from the tree tops. Paul said his defence department had already thought of the peano-buoy idea and Stephen had stolen it. Gilles thought it was too much to ask of his tribe to donate any more peanuts, although he did think the idea had some merit. Jack thought they could use sunflowers seeds and chickadees to keep the cost down. Even a steady snowfall did not seem to dampen their rhetoric. I was beginning to wonder if they were going to give me a break over the holiday weekend.

Friday morning I laid down the law to stop the chattering. If all of them wanted their usual Christmas treats, they would have to drop the politics for the next three days. The promise of walnuts and pecans worked. There might be Peace on Earth yet, I thought. It seemed it was only a matter of sharing the food equally among the squirrels.