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There is a one-eyed squirrel that feeds on my windowsill along with the birds. I've used the soap X on window to deter birds flying into the window as someone on AWAD suggested, and so far, so good. The one-eyed squirrel amazes me with its ability to get to the windowsill, for the only way over is to get on the house rooftop from a white oak out back, make a very wide leap onto the roof--and this squirrel is not asapanic-- cross it, jump down onto the porch roof, and then up to my windowsill, about a three-foot jump, quite a small jump, surely, compared to the others.
From where I type, the sill is a bit too low to see the little birds--just their heads--so I've set up a thick glass box about three inches high and four inches square on the ledge of the sill to better view feeding birds. I hope the squirrel won't be interested in it because I've put its favorite piles of sunflower seeds to the right of the glass box. But squirrels are curious creatures, so it may move to the box and feed there a while out of curiosity. If it finally realizes that there are few sunflower seeds there, then perhaps the birds will feed on the box away from the squirrel at the other end.
Note to et': I'll send you a photo today of the one-eyed squirrel.
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Sorry, left out an 's': assapanic.
It's a term referring to squirrels that fly.
Edit: Specifically: American flying squirrels.
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; )
/eight-year old boy mode off
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>Note to et': I'll send you a photo today of the one-eyed squirrel. great! though I won't get my ass in a panic about it... 
formerly known as etaoin...
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Edit: Specifically: American flying squirrels.Thanks for the new word, WW! You gotta be a little more specific, though: there are two kinds of American <ahem> flying squirrels. no, not country and western
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formerly known as etaoin...
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The assapanic is Sciuropterus volucella or Pteromy's volucella, one and the same American flying squirrel. I don't know about t'other one you're talking about, AnnaS, so please broadify my deductination.
Thank, ET, for posting the One Eye. The eye in the photo is the one that no longer works. He's a very feisty squirrel who growls when others approach his seed pile. Gotta be a male. Just gotta be.
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Just because your squirrel grunts does not necessarily mean that he is a male. I know some females who grunt. Try this simple experiment... Note for three days the direction that "One Eye" is looking while he feeds. Record these observations. Then after three days if you find that "One Eye" directs his good eye towards the sky in look out for deadly hawks, then he is a female. Conversely. If "One Eye only pretends to feed, and is oblivious to deadly hawks, and has his one good big brown eye focused on you in admiration, then "One Eye" is a male and you may call him Tom. _____________________________________________________
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One Eye keeps the good eye toward the grove always, and there is a hawk that feeds there.
AnnaS (or anyone who knows): What is the other type of American flying squirrel that you mentioned? Thanks for providing that genus and species for our *most accurate record here.
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According to this site there are two species of North American flying squirrel: northern flying squirrel Glaucomys sabrinus and the southern flying squirrel, Glaucomys volans. Their ranges are overlapping and, to complicate matters further, there are at least two sub-species of the northern, G. sabrinus coloratus, the Carolina northern and G. sabrinus fuscus, the Virginia northern. Pteromys sp. are the Old World flying squirrels. Edit: Kids these days want everthang. OK, here's the site: http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/flyingsquirrel/Mehbe they changed genus names on us. Quick's you learn the old one they got somebody ready to pull up a new one.
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Interesting, Faldage. http://cancerweb.ncl.ac.uk/cgi-bin/omd?assapanicThis site, among others I checked, claims that the assapanic is American--and that it is Pteromys. Did any of the Old World flying squirrels become naturalized here? Ah! Edit: There are Pteromys and Pteromys, both Old and New World Pteromys, but ours has the genus and species I noted above when searching for "American flying squirrel."
What was Rocky?
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I don't know which site Faldage was referring to, WW, but as you know first-hand, we had a family or two of flying squirrels here in the rafters before the cats scared them away. According to my Audubon Society field guide, the northern and southern converge here and I was never able to tell which group our Rocky and friends belong to.
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Well, as long as Rocky knew which group he belonged to!
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what we do know for sure, Birdwatch, is that your squirrel is granivorous -- you have photographic proof.
but then I suppose the whole family Sciuridae is.
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Other 'granivores' appeared today, including four mourning doves, all at once, on the windowsill. A red-bellied woodpecker just flew off, a female. The belly actually isn't *red in the usual sense--mostly a strange shade of beige. She is quite shy; as soon as I make any kind of movement, she's off and flying. One Eye was here, too, this morning.
But four mourning doves! Extraordinary. Word has gotten around that there's good chow at this window.
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Faldage, the url comes up, but then the page doesn't load. Is it my end with the problem or theirs?
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the page doesn't load
I was missing a / at the end of the url. Maybe it'll work now, Try again.
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It did, and thanks. No mention of Sciuropterus volucella, so I suppose I could email her. Might do it tonight after the movie downstairs is over.
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This link (http://springerlink.metapress.com/app/home/contribution.asp?
wasp=pgwlnnwvmg6ye1lp8fvk&referrer=parent&backto=issue,5,7;
journal,9,29;linkingpublicationresults,1:104918,1) seems to say that S. volucella had its name changed to G. volans. You have to have a subscription to read the whole thing but this was available from the Google abstract:
… caused the name of the North American squirrel to change from Sciuropterus volucella (Pal-. las, 1778) to Glaucomys volans (Linnaeus, 1758). …
Great squirrel picture, by the way.
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Well, poor ol' Pteromy! He lost his part of the bargain, too.
I have another picture of ol' One Eye I took today that is even better. I'll send it to ET, if he will again be gracious enough to post it. It makes ol' One Eye look as large as the porch roof, kindof a Godzilla of sciurines.
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formerly known as etaoin...
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One Eye's latest photo is at the bottom of the list ET posted. Thanks, ET, very much for posting these. One Eye is at my window right now with little flakes of seeds on his nose. I know he spends a good hour here each day, twice a day, once in the morning and once later on. I wonder where else he goes. I sure hope a hawk won't get him.
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"You're a better man than I, Gunga Din."
I'd be setting traps and getting out my olde b-b gun.
but then I put out bird seed in the hopes of feeding/watching birds. <shrug>
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Me, tsu, tsuwm.
Hey, WW, you don't like hawks?
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Of course I like hawks! I just don't want 'em ettin' One Eye!
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formerly known as etaoin...
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hey!ROTFLMAO! 
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Hey, et', you don't like squirrel stew? (Don't let ol' One Eye hear me say that.)
Gunga Din, tsuwm? You better put that gunga yours in 'cuz I like my tree rats!
And about birds: There is a book by some famous-to-birders guy who teaches you to get wild birds to feed out of your hand. Apparently his six-step method requires a great deal of patience, so that leaves me out of the loop. I so much as pick up my very tiny Sony camera and off they fly.
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my dad gets wild birds to eat of of his hand every year..
the blue jays are the easiest..
he start out by picking the bugs off his plants (by hand,) and placing them in a disposable pie plate..
at first the birds wait till he goes indoors before coming to eat the bugs..
but soon, they fly to the pie plate as soon as he puts it down..
soon after that, they will fly in and grab the grubs if my father just hold his arm out for a few seconds--with the pie plate far from his body.
then he just puts the bugs in his open palm, and Mr Blue Jay is always the bravest..and land on my fathers out stretched hand, and gobbles up the (by now, gigantic!) tomato horn worms.. other birds follow Mr Jay's example.
(some blue jays return to the same area, for a few years, and are fresh and will eat from the pie plate as soon as they see my dad out in the garden.adn will eat from my fathers hand, early in the season. )
I hate hand picking the bugs! (and now its a moot point, because i don't have a garden!)
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Oh, I'd love to do that. I think I'd have to import bugs though. The only ones I've seen on my plants are tiny ants and ladybugs.
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What a squirrely bunch o' nuts youse guys are! ((((((((((((((((hug)))))))))))))))))))
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While reading of troy's memory of her dad hand feeding birds I had an "Uncle Bill Hunt" moment and thought back to gentler times when I was a member of a street gang known far and wee as the "Celts".
One day we stopped stealing hub caps and breaking into parking meters and rode over to Pratt City to watch a man call down wild birds.
The man, a gruff-talking retired steelworker, didn't much like punk kids but after a little begging and cajoling he led us around to his back yard and seated us on his porch. Then with great ceremony he put on a heavy long-sleeved hunting shirt with lots of pockets and walked slowly to the back of his yard by two oak trees and stretched out both arms in the manner of a cross.
We saw a miracle. In a sudden, squirrels came down from the trees and birds came down from the sky. Sparrows and redbirds fed on seed from his shoulders and head and outstretched hands while the squirrels searched his pockets for peanuts.
After a short while the boisterous squirrels ran the birds off and the man moved to a nearby bench and sat down.
Finally, after every pocket had been checked and rechecked for nuts the sqirrels scampered back to the trees and the show was over.
The man became our hero. We badgered him for his secret.
Was it the jacket? Years of training? He wouldn't tell us. All he said was that you had to have a calm and peaceful mind.
And then we left and went back to stealing hub-caps.
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