Encouraging a jake
Seriously cool. I just confused the 1-2” bearded jake. He was at the corn so I got the squawk box and yelped a few times. He looked up every time. It sort of wore off so I got the slate. He gobbled and fanned. He was looking straight at me from the driveway. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d flown up to the deck. He didn’t, but I held his attention for maybe 15 min. We “chatted” for a couple. He ran off up the hill but came back once with some encouragement from the box. I have a couple of picts but the deck rails are in the way. That’s how close he was, and it’s awfully hard to yelp and take picts at the same time. I didn’t even have the door more than cracked. I didn’t notice the fanned tail feathers’ length. I’ll have to get him back to measure.
Seriously cool.
Discouraging the squirrels
On the squirrel discouragement front, I changed feeders and moved it to the pine tree next to the corn area. It took a few min for everyone to find the new food site. I watched a squirrel climb a really spindly 2” maple to several feet above the feeder, jump (with a twist) down maybe 3 feet and land directly on top of the feeder. I went out and yelled. He crouched then ran down the safe way, but left the feeder alone. I’m not sure he could see it from where he was. It’s kind of protected by needles. (A little bit.) Anyway, it’s been out for 2 hrs now and the squirrels are still cleaning up the old site and working the corn, but the little birds have found it. Doves, crows, cardinals, blue jays, even a flicker and redbellied, and, of course, the turkey have chowed down on the corn this morning. An interesting difference between these squirrels and the Bellevue Skippy is that these guys don't seem to ever get full and don't rush off to bury the leftovers.
Later:
One climbed up the quince where the sunflowers used to be. He looked around; I could almost see him scratching his head. Another (or maybe the same one, they mostly look alike to me) climbed up to the higher pine branch, higher than the deck and it’s a good 10-15 feet over the branch where the feeder hangs. He went out to the tips of several branches looking. More head scratching. He’d lean out over and try the smallest branches he could. At one time I though he was going to leap. He went down below the feeder on the ground at some dropped seeds and looked up. The light bulb went on. He climbed to the correct branch and directly to the feeder. Amazing psychology study. It took maybe 45 min of this experimenting and GPS positioning to figure it out. When I went out to clap and yell at him, he scurried off.
Groundhogs Day?
Back in February Phil of Puxatauney fame predicted an early Spring. He was dead on; we had temps in the upper 60s and low 70s for a while. The rest of the story must have been that there'd also be an early winter: some human forecasters are calling for 10" snow this weekend! Today was the first time I've seen our gh. and he was down by the mound, not in the meadow where he normally is seen. Quite a traveler that guy.
