February 18

Our transient pack of juvenile delinquents has returned to the feeder area. They come just after first light, bounding in from the direction of the lower woods, I suspect coming from their elevated nests that we can see in the tops of some of the larger hardwoods.

At anytime, there are roughly four or five of these gray squirrels around the porch, eating as much of the cast off seeds as they can find, while also inventing new techniques of raiding the feeder itself. They are a comedy to watch, occasionally alternating between solitary feeding to interacting with one another as they play and quarrel around the dooryard.

When they arrive, our little red squirrel tends to leave, for it is apparent that their niches don’t overlap in harmony. To listen to little red, one would think that he rules the roost, with his incessant chittering and stamping of his feet announcing and protesting the arrival of the pack of grays. No sooner do they invade then does little red scurry, sometimes across the snow in the back headed for his nest in the barn, while other times up the big maple that dominates just beyond the feeder. The grays settle in, one after another to eat and play and scold among themselves, while little red runs along the highway of branches, chittering away in protest.