Mid-Atlantic Gardening: Your neck of the woods part 4 9/22/2013, 1 by coleup

coleup wrote:
What fun to combine love of nature with young children. And to get paid for it! Go Sally Go. Like the 'London Bridges' action song and the "Brown Bear' books are favorites, too.

In my neck of the woods, my adjacent two neighbors have been taking down large trees and clearing tons of brush and vines that have grown for all the years I have lived here from their acre
properties. My 'wild' yard no longer blends in! And, it has totally disrupted the wildlife and bird populations and habits. (Yes, deer are now browsing my yard but that's another thread posting)

The squirrel 'highway' now has lots of dead ends where they must touch down to get to their acorn and nesting trees. My white oak is a favorite stop and source especially since I have allowed Winter Creeper to climb it up about 30 feet to where the big branches start. This gives the effect of the oak arising out of the midst of evergreen droopy spreading vines about 15 feet wide which is a good screen from my closest neighbors front door and picnic table site. (Not a 'planned' solution, but it works for me).

Yesterday while actually planting, dividing and up potting many of my 'shopping frenzy' finds this Fall, there was a lot of activity in my oak. Then I heard a cry that sounded like a bird in distress, I ran towards the sound thinking immediately that a bird had been caught by one of the three members of my feral cat colony (read well-fed). I was right, it was a feral cat, but not with a bird, but a squirrel in its mouth! Got the cat to drop the squirrel and lured it away from its prey with a fresh can of cat food. When I went to retrieve the body, it was gone...disappeared into the vine covered trunk. When the cat finihed eating it looked for the squirrel and not finding it sat in the sun licking itself and I went back to work glad to not have to bury a squirrel.

About ten minutes later the was much activity again in the tree where rival squirrels often chase each other. I would have thought with such a close cat call they would have moved on. But no, evidently the escapee had re allerted the cat to its presence and was now being pursued by the cat along the big branches of the tree and trunk 30 - 40 feet up! Thankfully the squirrel leap on to another tree and cat couldn't or wisely didn't follow. The ruckus did attract the feral cat's slightly smaller brother and they both spent the rest of the afternoon climbing up through the vines looking for squirrels! Hope their hunting prowress turns to voles.

But then ground level hunting has some added hazards as back neighbor told me of 3 copperheads just 'up the hill' from me.