War Declared – Official! – Acrylic in a Watercolour Moleskine

In an effort to help the large variety of birds in this cold weather, we have put up a few bird feeders. This seemed to attract an enormous amount and things were going well – until this wee fella arrived on the scene. Using the top of our fence as a walkway, he runs, from the woods behind our garden to the spot where the seeds are. He then bullies everything else away and, hanging upside down from a branch, devours all the food. We have tried shifting the position of the feeders, making a noise and even flinging snowballs to no avail. As Bugs Bunny used to say, “You realise, this means war!” Margaret had the brilliant idea of mixing chilli powder amongst the seeds. She read somewhere that squirrels cannot stand the stuff while birds don’t mind. We now have at least five chilli addict squirrels attacking the bird food while the birds keep a respectful distance. What is even more bizarre is, when the squirrels are full up, they head back into the woods where the snow now seems to be melting faster than in our garden. I wonder if we have created a new strain of fire breathing mutants?