Novel hunting behavior may have emerged alongside a marked increase in the local vole population this summer.
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Watch carnivorous squirrels chow down on tasty voles
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Four shalt thou not count. Neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then proceed to three.
Five is right out.
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74 voles in 18 days is truly impressive, the neighborhood cats around here can't even seem to keep 3 in check.
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ToplevelpoT
Ars Scholae Palatinae
I sometimes hand-feed the squirrels that hang out in my yard. I have been bit prolly a dozen times.
Two factors separate the one time That little shit drew blood and meant to(!), and all the other times. Their close in vision is poor so they "THINK" they are going for what you are offering. They can't see that they have a small chunk of my flesh in their soft teeth. No, they do not wanna let go of what you were "offering", even if they did not get their teeth on it.
At least no squirrel has died from the bite. I warn them all to get their shots.
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Yes, such a loss. It could have been absolutely silly and delightful.
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I grew up in wasp country, and the saying was that if you killed one wasp, two came to its funeral. In summer, no jelly jar was rinsed and put into the garbage until after it had been half filled with water and set out to drown 100 wasps.
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It's fine, just house rule it as a monstrosity if it isn't already and stick to the rule that druids can only turn into beasts.
But dang, does that go totally against the rule of cool! Both the D&D move and BG3 have the owlbear wildshape and it's absolutely cool! Though in BG3 it should have been a later shape, because it does seem to be more exciting than the later shapes.
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Nice timing for this to show up in my Steam front page:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squirrel_with_a_Gun
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squirrel_with_a_Gun
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When I was a stripling chemist (= adolescent pyromaniac) we had moles in the lawn, and every few days a new molehill would turn up. My dad was not the most practical of men, and readily agreed with my plan to gas them by putting a mixture of sulfur and sodium chlorate down selected holes, and then igniting it. It was all very satisfying, and smoke appeared from vents all over the lawn, and everyone agreed that I was very smart. The next morning it turned out that I had underestimated the resilience of the little bastards, and they had responded to the need to ventilate their tunnels of sulfur dioxide by digging at least 20 new molehills overnight. The lawn never recovered, but a few years later we got a cat who loved to catch moles, and did so regularly, until our useless mutt killed the useful cat.
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And can we teach the squirrels in my backyard to start hunting chipmunks?
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My understanding is that liquid nitrogen pricing can be a bit of a toss up depending on location.
It's easily the cheapest liquid cryogen going; and wide use as a shield gas makes nitrogen pretty unexotic; but if the local Air Liquide distributor is leery of dealing with anyone who isn't an industrial, scientific, or medical customer with their own storage hardware you'll have some trouble; but if there's a good humored welding supply shop that shrugs at someone coming in with a styrofoam cooler and a story about only needing to store the stuff briefly, or is wiling to do a short term rental of a dewar on favorable terms, the cost isn't so bad at all.
And with an expansion ratio of just under 1:700; you can displace a lot of air in a confined space with a pretty limited amount of liquid.
I suspect that refrigerated liquid carbon monoxide would be the gold standard for gassing burrows without long-term toxicity; but that lacks the cooling and shield gas applications; and is dangerous enough that, cost aside, I'd assume that it's one of those things that chemical suppliers aren't thrilled about selling to randoms, likely with good reason.
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I was bitten by a squirrel during a visit to Princeton University. Worried about rabies, I went to the campus infirmary. They asked, “did it have an ear tag?”. Come to think of it, it did. The University vaccinates them all for rabies.
These black squirrels not very afraid of people and like to be fed.
The incident was unpleasant for both of us. I yanked my hand back and the squirrel clamped down on my forefinger. I started waving my arm around and he hung on for dear life. Finally I flung him off.
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I had one at Bok Tower Gardens get impatient that I wasn't offering it food quickly enough, so it decided to climb my leg. I was wearing shorts. It got to around my knee before I reacted, at which point I flailed and the squirrel was launched a good twenty feet. It was a bit upset at the course of events (as was I), and it fled into a tree for safety (I did not).
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A similar thing happened to me when I was a kid, but it was an alligator lizard, not a squirrel. Didn't work out too well for the lizard - it's tail broke off. But those those things could grow new ones so it wasn't that big a deal.
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Damn it: getting that wrong is pretty much grounds for losing one's nerd credentials completely.
Sigh.
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Have ground squirrels in our yard. They chase the regular squirrels. However Rupert "The Raven" likes to chase the ground squirrels. Saw him fly off with a young one in his beak. Be nice to Ravens. They are our friends.
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Just one radioactive lab accident away from turning into rabid human killing machines...
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As for holding off squirrels, I've had this feeder for about a month, and the squirrels don't even try to jump or climb down to it. It has weight-limiting shutters over the seed ports, and really tiny perches.
There is still a little scattered seed on the ground, but much less than when squirrels or big pigeons sent my old feeder spinning and dislodging a lot of seed.
If only the squirrels would go after our voles....
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Indeed! Rats are friends and a constant delight.
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Not from the US, but I see Squirrels as Evil. The cute appearance is to distract you from the fact they are plotting something. Framing someone for murder, overthrowing a government, or just stealing seed from the birdfeeder. Squirrels are not innocent!
I understand that there is a wider trend of re-evaluating if many presumed "herbivores" are strictly (obligate) vegetarians. Many other animals (deer, cows, hippos, ...) are perfectly happy to snack on a baby bird or other small food object that wanders past - the classic photo of a cow chewing on a snake comes to mind, but that is probably just Australia. Deer gnaw bones for calcium / minerals, any meat left on them is a bonus. So it doesn't surprise me that the bushy-tailed con artists have upped their menu. In fact, I am volely unsurprised..
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Squirrels are cute... Until they get into your tomato garden. Talk about voracious, after eating the tomatoes they ate the plants; impressive considering how toxic solenaceous plants are.
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It's a Vole's life in the modern British Army. Just kidding, Python continues to stay relevant:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdNCEL5JKF8
The skit appears to be a premonition of what Trump wants in his meetings. Musk learns to say "Splunge"!
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It‘s just “pre-chewed“ food to eat the vole after it ate the squirrel’s food..
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Crows are omnivores. Carrion is a big part of their diet. Any creature small enough to not fight too much will definitely be on their menu.
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I've got invasive Eastern red squirrels aka fox squirrels (Sciurus niger)here in Eugene. They eat everything in my garden. Tomatoes, strawberries, cucumbers, beans, carrots, squash, and even potatoes they dig up. Damn squirrels even chew on the trunks of my bonsai trees.
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I remember back in the 1980's stumbling across a book called After Man, by Dougal Dixon. It was an exploration of ideas about how life on Earth might look 50 million years in the future, after the current anthropogenic mass extinction has removed mankind plus many other currently familiar creatures. It had some fantastic illustrations. In this world, the top predators are rodents, with their incisors evolved into razor sharp fangs. I have to admit it has been highly influential on my subsequent thought processes.
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Nazonohito
Ars Praetorian
Love that dude's videos... Informative and entertaining, and his alternative names for some animals are hilarious... I, for one, will never again be able to call a "homicidal sea Oreo" an "orca".
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We must not forget that squirrels are vital to the spiritual life of a nation...
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K16fG1sDagU
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K16fG1sDagU
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I'm sure if your neighborhood cats were able to get perfect squirrel costumes, they would be much more effective.
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