SUNDAY WITH MR. SQUIGGLES
Since I used up all of my calendar challenges for the weekend yesterday, I like to introduce you to Mlle. Renee’s good friend Mr. Squiggles.
How do I know that Mr. Squiggles is a friend of Renee’s? He is one of the select group of creatures Renee will allow to enter her domain without barking at them, chasing them or getting a drink out of her water bowl. Sparrows and cardinals are also granted yard rights; opossums, rabbits, cats, snakes, mourning doves and robins are not. Opossums are on the no list because they won’t play, other than dead … rabbits because they hop and she can’t catch them … cats because they are aloof and won’t come close so she can see what they are and snakes because they wiggle. Snakes are also the only creature Renee will actually kill … with a deadly passion, too. She’s also not overly fond of large earth worms.
So being among the privileged few, Mr. Squiggles is a regular visitor to the yard to basically eat the remnants of birds’ luncheon. Each day I put out two cups of a wild bird mix. (Sunflower seeds, millet, nut pieces and dried fruits and berries.) It appeals to the house sparrows aka. chippies, the rare Eurasian Tree Sparrows (See http://smilingbagel.com/2012/07/25/something-unique-in-my-backyard/), cardinals, mocking birds and alas, the messy eaters … the mourning doves.
In addition to being messy eaters, the mourning doves are also bossy and aggressive. One is fond of standing on top of the seed in the middle of the plate and chasing off anyone else looking for a bite to eat. They also aren’t fond of sunflower seeds which they throw off of the seed plate.
While the sparrows and Mr. Squiggles seem to co-exist at lunch time, he usually shows up after they eat and he cleans up all the tidbits that have been thrown around on the ground. (A rodent preventing rodent? I usually rake up the sunflower husks and add them to my compost pile.)
So this post is dedicated to Mr. Squiggles, and hopefully I will someday be able to snap that elusive picture of him hanging upside down from that tree branch.
Until then, I was able to capture him with an origami fold …
Posted on January 13, 2013, in MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING! and tagged cardinals, chippies, Eurasian Tree Sparrows, Mlle. Renee, mourning doves, Mr. Squiggles, nuts and berries, opossums, origami, robins, squirrels. Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments.
... a somewhat unknown or perhaps imaginary actor, writer, director, producer, photographer, friend, brother, uncle and all round good fellow that you really should get to know because he lives with that most glamorous fourpaw Mademoiselle Renee. (Mlle. Renee for short)
Renee is a very unpredictable dog. Pixie would never be friends with Mr. Squiggles. Or maybe all that barking she does really means, “Hey, hey, hey! Come be my friend!” (But I don’t think so.)
Your birds and squirrels are so lucky to have you.
That’s what Renee said … right after she tried eating some of the seed and spit it all out.
HA HA! (I’ll bet the birds were laughing at her, too.)
I did discover that dogs do not digest bird seed when I cleaned up the doggie deposits.