this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2024
64 points (71.6% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35309 readers
849 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Every boomer with a bird feeder hates squirrels. I don't understand.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 89 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Squirrels eat the bird food meant for the birds and are extremely hard to stop

[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

They make a bird feeder called ‘Squirrel Buster’ which is fairly squirrel proof. I still put out food for them though, squirrels gotta eat too.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

This. I found the squirrels to leave the bird feeders and the garden alone if you leave them a danegeld of raw peanuts and maybe strap an ear of corn to the tree.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I buy in shell peanuts for wildlife and the squirrels love them. They bury them all round the property which is fun to watch. On Nextdoor I occasionally find posts from people trying to figure out where all these peanut shells are coming from in my neighborhood.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

My neighbor does this and I hate them. I have peanut shells all over my property. I can’t walk barefoot because there’s so fucking many shells.

They’re in my drains. They’re in my flower and veggie beds. Birds pick them up and take them to my roof and try to crack them at 6am and wake us up.

I HATE HATE HATE my peanut throwing neighbors.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

And then you go put more peanuts out, I assume

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I buy peanuts 50 pounds at a time, same with black oil sunflower weeds. Nature loves them both. Our backyard is full of natural weeds, bunnies, squirrels, chipmunks and many varieties of birds

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You sometimes have to be careful with corn… I picked up some cheap bird food with corn in it, the squirrels got into it and buried kernels all around the yard. My wife just about went crazy yanking corn sprouts out of our and the neighbors yard! 😄

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

🎵 Oh strap an ear of corn, to the old oak tree... 🎵

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I just watched "o brother where art thou". Soggy bottom boys got a new hit

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

🎵 I-he-yahi am an ear, of corn and sorrow. I've seen squirrels, all my days...🎶

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I do this, but I've got a wood chip yard except for where plants are.

Guess where the little bastards bury their peanuts?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

In your corn-hole?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

Why are the squirrels second class citizens to the birds? Is there a bird food shortage?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 weeks ago

No, it's just a bird feeder not a squirrel feeder. At least until the squirrels manage to change the signage, which they probably could if they tried hard enough.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Squirrels can clean out a feeder pretty quickly. Not as fast as deer can, but much faster than the birds.

So it's a pain in the ass to go fill it back up, and it costs money. A person gets a bird feeder because they want to watch birds. There are cheaper ways to feed squirrels, if you like squirrels.

Both squirrels and birds can build nests in your home. Squirrels can chew their way into your attic, then you risk them chewing through wires. Birds nest in your dryer vent or bathroom vent. A nest in the dryer vent is a fire hazard. And they can introduce bird mites into your home. It's like having a bed bug infestation except you can't see them, their bites are hella itchy, and at least they can be dealt with by multiple rounds of thorough vacuuming. Ask me how I know.

I used to love to keep a bird feeder and watch the bird party on a snowy day. But I wasn't out to feed the deer, and the mite problem erased any lingering feelings about feeding birds.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 weeks ago

How do you know?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Birds are super good for the environment, take a quick google!

Squirrels on the other hand, are an invasive species in much of the world.

In my home province squirrels make it pretty hard for some of our local trees etc.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

A particular species of squirrels. I think people in this thread fail to make clear that this is exclusively about the North American grey squirrel. The Eurasian red squirrel is not invasive anywhere, And I strongly doubt anyone have any problem with having them in their bird feeder, since they are solitary and relatively shy creatures.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago

Squirrels in my area don't share. And will do whatever they can to get to the feeder, even if that means breaking shit. I currently use a seed that has some spillage and that's kept the squirrels satisfied. I don't mind them, but they end up making it sl I won't get any birds.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

Squirrels are an invasive species, they chew wires and mess with stuff.

Birds are pretty, sound nice, and eat bugs. They also poop on everyone's stuff, but somehow it's good luck if you get shit on.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Squirrels are an invasive species, they’re not native to North America.

Just how many tens of millions of years do a species need to exist in a place before you consider it native to that land?

"The earliest known North American squirrel fossil dates back to the late Eocene epoch, about 34 million years ago." source

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

North American grey squirrels are an invasive species... in Europe. They seem to be able to outcompete the native red squirrels here

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

@[email protected] said "they’re not native to North America." which is incorrect. North America squirrels may be invasive on other continents but certainly not in North America.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Oh, I'm not disagreeing with you by any means. I just thought it was kinda funny that they had the direction of the invasiveness of that particular animal backwards

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah I caught that and edited it before I thought anyone saw it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Only about 300 years, from your own link you kindly provided:

When European settlers first arrived in North America, they brought with them a number of animals that were not native to the continent. One of these animals was the eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), which was introduced to England in the early 1600s as a curiosity.

The eastern gray squirrel quickly became popular in England, where it was kept as a pet and admired for its agility and intelligence. In the late 1700s, a group of eastern gray squirrels was introduced to New York City’s Central Park, where they quickly established a population.

Over the next few decades, the eastern gray squirrel spread rapidly across North America, aided by its adaptability and ability to thrive in a variety of habitats. Today, the eastern gray squirrel is one of the most common squirrels in North America, and it can be found in every state except for Alaska and Hawaii.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Only about 300 years, from your own link you kindly provided:

I think you need to read that carefully again. Squirrels have been in North America for millions of years before Europeans arrived. The part you quoted was where Europeans took a specific species of squirrel found in North America, the eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), back with them to England.

The rest of that quoted piece talks about that specific species of North American squirrel's spread around other parts of North American.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Don't forget the obviously non-invasive european starling and european house sparrow common at feeders. /s

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

They have managed to invade my heart.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Humans are an invasive species, especially if you are a descendant of an English settler and not a native american indian

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Truthfully they were also invasive. We're only native to Africa

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

But when they arrived in the lands of North America, those lands were not inhabited by other human tribes

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

We've not talking about colonizing though, we're discussing invasive species.

Given humanity (Homo Sapiens) is currently thought to have evolved in Africa, that is the natural human habitat. All other habitats we've created we can be thought of as an invasive species.

Please don't virtue signal when it's off topic like this, it's really annoying.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 weeks ago