peanut war

whenever I am at the cottage for a day..i put out some peanuts for the squirrels and seed for the birds. I take any left overs back in before I leave to discourage rodents from finding a new food source and moving in.

this morning I was squirrel watching..there are 2 distinct populations...black and grey. they don't like each other and always play game of thrones for control over my back yard.

so back to the peanuts...
I put out the dish on the fence for whoever found it first.
today was one of the little black guys.

black squirrel: "holy shit! it is peanut day!!"
he quickly grabs a peanut and runs off to bury it somewhere safe. he is back a couple of minutes later to grab another and off he went again.
I watched him grab almost a dozen peanuts one at a time, stashing each of them in a different place each time!
smart little squirrel.

with one of the last ones, as he was running down the fence with his prize, one of the grey squirrels showed up right in front, blocking his way!

grey squirrel: "whatcha got there buddy? could it be a peanut??"

black squirrel turned right around and hopped off the fence and ran off into the bush with grey squirrel in hot pursuit.

black squirrel led grey squirrel on a merry chase but still managed to stash his peanut someplace and grey squirrel knew there was a peanut stashed somewhere very close.

so while grey squirrel rummaged around in the underbrush looking for that particular peanut, black squirrel snuck back to the bowl three more times to empty it and stash the remainders.

peanut bowl is now empty.
final score...
black squirrel 11...grey squirrel 1 (maybe, not sure he actually found it.)

I just love watching the squirrels... some are way smarter than others and way better at peanut wars!