Squirrel - Bird fight. Weirdest thing I've ever seen.

[Scout1071]

I'm walking my dog this morning when I hear a group of birds squawking loudly near some tennis courts. Then I realize they are attacking a squirrel. I know that Blue Jays attack cats, etc., but when I got closer, I realized that the squirrel was attacking and EATING a bird. He spooked when I came close with the dog and the squirrel took off, up a tree - with the bird in it's mouth.

Anyone ever see a squirrel as a predator? I thought they were herbivores?

[Southsideirish]

1. Wow - that is wierd. I'm glad I didn't see it. Did you try to intervene?

I would try pelting him with stones or something to distract him to see if he would drop it or give it an opportunity to escape. Poor thing. I'm not going to look on the squirrels in the park so fondly this afternoon now.

[ghostsofgiants]

21. Some advice:

If that bothers you, do yourself a favour and avoid nature.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. Squirrels are vicious.

Ever see the video of the squirrel attacking the motorcyclist?

[Whoa_Nelly]

3. Squirrels are omnivores

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squirrel

<snip>
Despite the popular impression, squirrels are actually omnivores; as well as eating a wide variety of plant food, including nuts, seeds, fruits, fungi (for example, mushrooms), and green vegetation, they also eat insects, eggs, and even small birds, smaller mammals, and frogs. It is also a common occurrence that these foods replace nuts in some of the tropics. There has even been a report of squirrels eating dogs.



http://www.unexco.com/SQ1.html

<snip>
Squirrels are omnivores and will eat any kind of food you can think of, and some that you can't. That means they will scavenge from your open garage, from your trash, fruit and nut trees, and your garden.

[hunter]

4. Squirrels are basically rats with big fuzzy tails.

Now I like rats, and I like squirrels.

The big problem at our house is that we have pet rats and we have told the dogs not to molest them. Before we had pet rats we never saw any wild rats, probably because the dogs ate them, or at least tried to eat them.

Now the damned wild rats know they are protected and they come right out in the open to eat at the bird feeder, and even try to catch birds that land there. Our dogs just sit there and look at them.

I can't think of any way to explain to our dogs that there is a difference between the wild rats outside and the rats we keep as pets.

[sarge43]

5. Perhaps scent, hunter. n/t

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

6. Did this happen to take place at Drew University?

Because, honestly, I've feared for my life with some of those squirrels. I got retribution once though. It was sweet, although they're probably heading up Rt. 287 by the 1000s, armed and wearing helmets, ready to seek revenge for their disgraced comrade.

[KittyWampus]

8. LOL! The Gang Of Squirrels Approaches. This is actually really interesting

I had no idea squirrels ate birds.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

11. Until my job moved me to off-campus housing, I lived in a dorm room.

All the woodwork was gnawed down. At some point before I lived there, a deranged squirrel was trapped in that room. You couldn't leave food in the kitchen, because they'd eat it. They'd run into a bathroom stall while you're using it. Go into the shower and there would be a fucking squirrel having a drink.

This is my tale of retribution.

I'm sitting on the patio in front of the theater eating my lunch with some coworkers. I believe it was Chinese food. I turn my head for a second and a fucking squirrel jumps on the bench and tries to eat my Chinese food. I jump up and yell at the little fucker. Well, he runs into a garbage can a few feet away. These are heavy duty iron cage, bolted into concrete garbage cans. So I walk up to this garbage can and I kick that thing as hard as I possibly could. Reverberations of metal rang through the air and the squirrel, in a move similar to the JFK assination "Magic Bullet Theory" levitates about 6' straight up into the air. At the peak, it somehow makes a perfect 90 trajectory change and landed on a tree around 10' away...where the little fucker stayed while I ate my Chinese food.

The squirrels there are even larger than regular squirrels; larger than the other squirrels in town off-campus. It's a seperate subspecies, I tell you. Sciurus carolinensis drewusis. During orientation, the Associate Artistic Director actually said, "should we warn them about the squirrels?" And the Artistic Director replied, "Don't worry, they'll find out about them soon enough."

I don't think it's any coincidence that a production of Circumference of a Squirrel took place at the other theatre company in town. By the way, the actor pictured there is excellent. I've worked with him many times.

[KittyWampus]

12. Well, I guess NJ grows those large danger-squirrels. Here on eastern LI

there are only your basic grey squirrels. They are sort of amusing and the roadkill ones are handy for taxidermy.

edit- Circumference of a Squirrel actually looks interesting.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

14. It's a good play. A one-man show.

It alternates between being hilarious and heartbreaking. It needs to be done by a very talented & physical actor, otherwise it won't work. It's not killer NJ squirrels. It's not even killer Madison, NJ squirrels. It's killer Drew University squirrels.

[BikeWriter]

7. That's why they are called tree rats.

:shrug:

[bleedingheart]

9. a squirrel once charged at and then chased my brother...

it was hysterical...

[Zookeeper]

10. That is weird...

Although a couple of weeks ago I saw the tail-less squirrel that lives in our yard attack and chase off a huge rabbit that happened by.

And I've felt threatened by the little squirrels that live in Golden Gate Park in S.F.

So, I'm not totally surprised.

[trackfan]

13. I've seen a lot of squirrel-bird fights. Usually the bird is the aggressor

The birds attack the squirrels as they scamper across the telephone lines. Maybe they were getting too close to the nest. The birds usually seem to win the fight.

[usedtobesick]

15. and remember Squirrels can carry rabbies...

I loves squirrels... I even have been known to eat them out in the wilds but in the city they can be pretty aggressive. I was attacked taking garbage to the can one afternoon, I guess her baby had fallen out of the nest and she was protecting the baby by the can and it was creepy. Tenacious little animals. I felt really bad later having found the baby and gotten the rest of the picture. I do know of others in the local park that have gotten bitten for not feeding the squirrels who thought the picnic was for them.

[Scout1071]

16. Sorry to kick a day later, but just getting back and still disturbed

by this incident! I will never look at squirrels the same way again. I did always think they were tree rats, BUT, I didn't think they were vicious like what I saw yesterday.

So weird. It's not like I have lived in an urban area with few squirrels. I live in the burbs and have lived around millions of the little bastards. I've just never seen one attack another animial!

[giant_robot]

17. Apparently the tree is where he keeps...

...his fava beans and a nice chianti.

[Scout1071]

18. Most disgusting movie. Ever.

I'm not one for scary movies and that one in particular scared the sh*t out of me.

[nytemare]

19. I feed squirrels and birds at my work.

I have never seen anything like that. But I have seen birds kinda screeching at the squirrels over the food.

That is weird.

[Drum]

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