Even bribery won't keep grey squirrels at bay, says JOHN INGHAM
BLACKMAIL is a terrible crime and the advice is always the same: never pay. But the other day I found myself surrendering to a gang of extortionists clad in grey fur.
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It is just the latest round in a relentless arms race that has run for years in my back garden.
I had hung up some fatballs packed with berries for the birds only for our local squirrels to scoff the lot. So I put new fatballs in a metal grille and, in a bid to buy off my nemesis, I scattered birdseed on the lawn.
But as the Anglo-Saxons found when they paid the Vikings Danegeld, it doesn't work. It just encouraged more Vikings to come. Soon the lawn was a twitching copse of squirrel tails. And then they ate the fatballs.
Over the years I have tried nearly everything to keep the grey peril at bay.
The arms race continues - and despite my better judgment I keep trying to bribe the furry little *******s.
It began with peanuts in a string bag. The squirrels shredded that and hoovered up the fallen booty. I put peanuts in a proper feeder with a thick chicken-wire holder. They shredded that too.
My daughter got me a tall slim metal pole, fixed a bird table to it and hung the feeders from the arms. The squirrels shimmied up the greasy pole and ate their fill.
I put an upside down curved bowl halfway up the pole, which foxed them for a bit until they climbed up a nearby shrub and became flying squirrels.
Then I got a metal feeder where the holder is surrounded by enough bars to baffle Harry Houdini. It's brilliant.
But in the spring young squirrels can squeeze through the bars and gorge themselves.
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Then I got a very tough clear plastic nyjer seed feeder with metal surrounds and tiny holes. Success at last. The squirrels gave up. The goldfinches are delighted.
Next was a spring-loaded seed feeder. The birds are light enough to get access but when heffalumps like Mr Squirrel climb aboard the case of the feeder slides down, shutting off the food ports. Another victory - but at what price? Feeders don't come cheap.
Of course I could get an air rifle but there's no point. If you shoot one squirrel at this upmarket restaurant another will take its place.
To get rid of them I'd have to turn my garden into a re-enactment of the Somme.
So the arms race continues - and despite my better judgment I keep trying to bribe the furry little *******s.
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Climate change could be it for snow bunting
BRITAIN'S hardiest little bird is thriving on the top of our highest mountains. There are 60 breeding pairs of snow bunting in the Cairngorms and Highlands, say the RSPB and Scottish Natural Heritage. They climbed the peaks, including Ben Nevis, to count every one.
But climate change could do for these sparrow-sized Arctic birds. They don't like it hot, you see.
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Scientists colour in prehistoric butterflies
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WE TEND to think of the past in black and white, as if colour was only invented in the 1940s.
But scientists have unlocked the secret of Jurassic butterflies.
These beauties were just as colourful 200 million years ago as our modern red admirals, sporting herringbone patterns and metallic hues, reports Science Advances.
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A swallow makes a summer
A FAMILIAR chattering song made me look skywards last weekend as that rarest of sights - sunshine - ushered in my first swallow of the year.
He was ploughing on, probably newly arrived from the South African reedbeds where he had spent our winter.
Quite why millions of birds make these perilous migrations has been a mystery but now scientists at Sweden's Lund University have found a possible explanation.
By leaving the tropics birds such as swallows and warblers escape the threat of tropical diseases which in turn boosts the chances of them and their young surviving.
Yet we sun worshipping humans dream of holidays in the tropics.
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Saving Taz
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TASMANIAN devils could be saved from extinction by human medicine. The ferocious carnivores are being wiped out by a face cancer which they spread when they bite each other.
But Cambridge University has proved human cancer drugs can stop the disease, reports Cancer Cell. Tazzie will live to fight another day.
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The Great Landfill Rush
LANDFILL sites could be the scene of a modern Gold Rush. Swedish and Finnish researchers say "landfill mining" can recover precious metals such as gold, silver, phosphorus and copper.
Yahya Jani of Linnaeus University says 50 per cent of landfill waste can be reused or burned for energy. There's gold in them there dumps.