Last year about this time we saw a population explosion among the California Ground Squirrels. See "Baby Boom". Big Mama had produced a litter of at least seven baby squirrels, all as cute as a bug's ear and as voracious as, well, as a litter of ground squirrels. They camped under our bird feeder and stuffed themselves for weeks on the seed that the finches and sparrows spit out onto the ground. The baby squirrels must have eaten a couple of pounds of bird seed among them. Then, at the end of June, they dispersed and we only saw them occasionally.
We saw Big Mama under the bird feeder in February gorging on bird seeds, so we've been watching for this year's crop of baby squirrels, but so far have not seen any squirrels at all.
That makes us wonder: Did something happen to Big Mama? Did some predator, such as the Tree Fox or a coyote or the hawk get them all? Are they just late? Did they find a better feeder?
Maybe the coyote poop we saw out behind the fence a couple of weeks ago had something to do with it.
No comments:
Post a Comment