Birdhouse Vandalized—Pictures at Eleven!

Actually, no one needs to wait until eleven for pictures from the news any more, do they? We just click on our fave news site on the web and you are there!

All kidding aside, this view disconcerted me a little bit when seen through the blur of my before-the-first-cup-of-tea fog this morning.

You see, about this time of year, we start to hear and read warnings about NOT filling our bird feeders, right when the little feathereds return from Capistrano or wherever they pitched their tents to escape the snowiest winter in everyone under-60's memory. But it's not birds we're worried about.

It's bears.

Yeah, they wake up this time of year—cranky and hungry—and there's a whole lot of woods around here so it's easy for one to hibernate in your neighborhood and you not know it. In fact, many towns in Vermont have pretty strict rules about taking down your birdfeeders by April 1.

So my foggy head caused an intake of breath when I first gazed out the window this morning. Then I put on my glasses.

Squirrels. The height of the snow piled next to this feeding station gave them the perfect launching pad to bypass our baffle system, and they tore into the last seed I'm putting out this year.

Actually, I like squirrels, especially the small red ones. They have a vocabulary you just wouldn't believe. When they scold you, you know it!

But really, they could have been nicer about this.