In case you’re reading this because the title suggests I might be admitting to a nasty streak in my behavior, then forget it.
This article isn’t about that. However, though I don’t deny that I am becoming more and more of a curmudgeon with every passing day, what I will be sharing here is based on my experiences the last 15 years with the local wildlife both in Florida and the old, not-so-suburban ‘hood in the northeast corner of New Jersey.
As Lady Vyz and I packed up for our recent move, we knew we’d have to go through some separation from the wildlife. We expected there would be more critters to bid good-bye, but, in the end, it was the first visitors we encountered here over four years ago that were the only ones left standing.
Two sand hill cranes, Ozzie and Harriet, were our first backdoor pets. Early on we found they liked to eat the bread we threw out for the blue jays, cardinals, mockingbirds and red-winged black birds. We could watch them from behind the two sliding glass doors that faced out on the lanai. These wall-length windows also framed an oak sapling and a 40-foot grass expanse that stretched from the lanai to the wetlands that lay behind a wall of shrubs and a mix of live oaks and southern pines.
We had placed Vyzykeet’s cage in the center of the sliders and found he got excited when the birds came to feed. It seemed his favorite feathered friends were the blue jays. He got quite animated when they appeared and, though he was one of the few males who couldn’t mimic human speech, that is, “talk,” he did adopt two blue jay calls.
Not long after our move to the residence, Ozzie and Harriet began stopping by. Then, weeks later, two female raccoons—Raquel and Rachel—began popping up.
Raquel showed up first and was easily identifiable by the limp in her right rear leg. Raquel was a peaceful animal whom we could hand feed. She was also a principal in the most comical incident that took place in the backyard—one that also involved Ozzie.
Both of them decided to go for the same slice of bread. Although there was plenty for everybody, Ozzie decided he wanted Raquel’s slice, and with Raquel hunkered over her bread—the better to protect it—Ozzie stealthily moved toward her and began pecking her on the head. With every hit Raquel took, she’d look up at him as if to say: “Quit it, huh?” And with each of Raquel’s reactions, Ozzie would initiate his territorial display, which didn’t faze Raquel at all. She was more interested in food than fighting and, finally, unable to eat in peace, she took her bread and hobbled into the wetlands as Ozzie turned and, with chest puffed, strutted victoriously (Thaz right. I’m bad. Un-huh.) back to Harriet.
Rachel was not as passive as Raquel, whose meek behavior was probably a survival strategy because she knew she was not a dominant female. We did feed Rachel by hand on occasion, but we were never really sure about her and kept things simple. Rachel produced three fur balls. Poor Raquel managed only one. Both raccoons would disappear for a while then return, but both did stop coming. Raquel left first. Rachel stayed on a bit longer, and it may be coincidence, but her final departure coincided with the death of a raccoon who was struck by a vehicle on the road on the other side of the wetlands.
However, the loose association we’ve maintained over the last 10 years with the wildlife here in Florida—a thread I’ll return to later in this article—had its roots on an early spring day in 1991 in Teaneck, New Jersey.
I had been accepted into a college umpires association and was awaiting my first assignment, but while working high school exhibitions, I had developed a slight pull in the hamstring of my right leg. To have to give up games would not go well for me as a rookie in the college ranks so I did all I could to treat the pull and keep it as minimal as possible.
My self-treatment included going out each morning in a pair of sweats and sitting in the backyard with my leg propped up on a picnic bench and a hydrocollator pad wrapped tight to my hamstring. I brought a book with me and read while I let the moist heat do its thing, but I soon became aware of a curious bystander eyeballing me. A squirrel. With each passing morning, the squirrel would inch a bit closer, but still kept its distance. Eventually, one morning, just for chortles, I grabbed a handful of chopped walnuts and began to flip a few to the squirrel, who I would later find was a female that we named Lady.
Within a few days, Lady began hopping up on my leg to eat the walnut pieces I placed on my outstretched leg but no farther up than the knee. And, at the same time, interested by the Renaissance Landscaper’s birding stories, I bought a dome and a tube feeder, bags of wild bird and black oil seed, suet, and raw peanuts. I hung the dome in a Norway Maple opposite our kitchen window on the second floor of the two-family house in which we lived; the other I hung six feet up in a maple in the backyard.
I also dangled a suet cage from beneath the dome feeder in the cold-weather months.
The food immediately and consistently drew a crowd of mostly blue jays, cardinals, sparrows, purple finches, titmice, chickadees, downy woodpeckers and nuthatches. The squirrels were frustrated, however, because I positioned the feeders so they couldn’t get to them, even with a flying leap. But I didn’t exclude them from the feast. The peanuts I had bought mainly for them and, with my leg healed and the weather warming, I began to sit on the front stoop and entice Lady with the peanuts.
Soon she and other bolder squirrels would come up on and perch themselves on my thigh and take the peanuts from my fingers. I, like many people, had branded the squirrels “rats with bushy tails,” but I began to realize that, though they are rodents, they are not dirty animals, just very opportunistic with distinct personalities—the only indicator we could use to identify them.
Lady was the matriarch and—my best guess—had three broods the three years we coexisted with the critters at the two-family. In time, the squirrels put it together that we lived on the second floor and began to attract our attention in two ways: They would climb the maple and peer into the kitchen to see if we were there; or they would tightrope-walk the power volt line that led from a street pole to the corner of the house just above a roof that overhung the first floor’s window, a few feet below our bedroom window.
