The Battle of the Bird Feeder

I finally got around to filling up our bird feeder the other day.  I was really impressed that over the course of the week I'd only ever seen birds at it.  I was hoping that meant there were no squirrels in our neighborhood.  (Juuuust kidding.  Of COURSE there are squirrels here).

Bird feeder & bird (just to the right of the red door)

Yesterday, we had our first squirrel interloper.  I saw the squirrel up on the grape vines checking out the situation.  He started climbing down the vine toward the feeder in preparation of leaping over to it.

Enthusiastic tooth brushing

As the squirrel readied his leap, a robin dive bombed the squirrel!  It knocked him right off the vine and onto the ground.  It was impressive.  It was a pretty big robin, but still, the squirrel was definitely bigger.  DH thinks maybe there's a robin's nest nearby which is why he was so aggressive?

Dada's here!  Everybody's super excited!!

At this point, I had Riley at the back door, ready to sic him on the squirrel.  He was super focused and even ran straight to where the squirrel was (this is often a problem).  The squirrel got away, but Riley gave a good chase.

What's wrong with your hat mom?

The squirrel did come back (it could have been a new one) a couple times over the course of the day, but I tried to have Riley at the ready each time to chase him off.  Hopefully the birds will get to eat the bulk of the bird seed and not squirrels.

Yeah, I'm eating lunch.  What are you lookin' at?

Now that we're feeding the birds, I feel like we should be providing them with water.  We're thinking about getting a bird bath.  I can't decide if we should get one that's low enough for Riley to drink out of (I like the multiple uses for one item), or if that will deter the birds from using it (not exactly efficient if it negates the primary purpose)...

Look what I did mom!  I emptied this bag out for you!

TerraDactyl hard at work, just like Dada.  She LOVES typing.

After the great ant debacle, I held off on feeding TerraDactyl pears.  She was just throwing them all on the floor anyways.  I finally decided to try re-introducing pears.  It's going better than last time (knock on wood).  I'm not sure that she really likes them, but she eats them.  Based on the video, TerraDactyl isn't sure if she likes them or not either.  I hope you enjoy this video half as much as I do.  ;)

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