Spicy Squirrels

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Originally written on May 3, 2012

     What!? I am sitting on my couch, looking through my front window, and there is a squirrel at my bird feeder. Eating hot pepper suet. Seriously?? I went outside to watch. There are at least 5 squirrels out there, and one of them is repeatedly climbing up to my feeder and eating that stuff! I thought they weren't supposed to like hot chillies.

     Maybe I should give up. I initially put regular bird seed in my bird feeder. It attracted mostly cardinals and squirrels. Soon the squirrels would empty the feeder by the afternoon. I switched to those white safflower seeds. It said on the packaging that squirrels don't like it. At first it worked! I had birds and no squirrels. Eventually a squirrel started hanging around eating the safflower seeds, but it wasn't too bad. Well, the last time I bought a bag of safflower seeds, I ended up with a group of squirrels, that indeed were eating the safflower seeds! They again were emptying the feeder by the afternoon, sometimes in only a few hours.

     So the last time I went shopping I saw hot chili pepper suet pellets. I was sure the squirrels would not like it. I mixed safflower seeds and hot pepper suet pellets together in my bird feeder. The squirrels took the whole day to empty my feeder, but I thought maybe they just dumped all of the pellets on the ground and didn't eat them.

     Today I put only hot chili pepper suet in my bird feeder. The squirrels were all there watching me. As soon as I stepped back a big female climbed up and took a pellet. I thought she did not like it because she made a very odd sound after eating it. Then she went back up and hung upside down with her face in the pellets. Eating them and making the occasional odd sound. Still, I think she may be the only one eating them. The others made a huge fuss climbing all over my windows for 5 minutes, and then left. That one squirrel is the only one still out there. Calmly sitting on my bird feeder eating hot pepper suet pellets.

     I do like squirrels, I just don't want them using up my bird feed so fast. I have thought about getting one of those more expensive bird feeders that squirrels supposedly can't get into, and then feed the squirrels separately so they don't try to find a way into the bird feeder.

     After all, one squirrel started eating the safflower seeds and others eventually picked it up, so I suspect the others might do the same with the hot chili pepper suet. Update: not 5 minutes have passed and there is now a second squirrel trying the hot pepper suet pellets. Now the two squirrels are squabbling on my window. I'm glad the claws on glass sound doesn't bother me, I suspect it would send some people up the wall.

A cell phone photo of a squirrel outside my window, with a hot chili pepper suet pellet in it's mouth.

:)

ETA:  I have noticed this is far and away my most popular post, which has made me wonder if my title has led people to think there might be a very interesting recipe in this post!  Sorry if I have disappointed anyone.  This webpage actually does have a recipe for squirrel.