Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Sunday, July 8. 2018

A good year for Chipmunks

This has been a banner year for the Eastern Chipmunk around my place and everywhere I go. I love these little buggers.


Sure, they take bites of out my tomatoes (for the water, I suspect). I don't mind much. If you have stone walls, log piles, and brushy areas, they will build their tunnels. It seems like their main enemies are house cats, Black Snakes, and weasels. Since we have no roaming house cats these days (thank goodness), our friendly little chipmunks are having a good year. 


At this time of year, there are plenty of young ones too. They are innocent, do not seem careful enough about life. 


A friend of mine sits on his front porch in the evening with a whisky and a cigar, and feeds them his walnuts from his hand.

Posted by Bird Dog in Natural History and Conservation at 17:06 | Comments (10) | Trackbacks (0)

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Certainly noticed a very large increase in chipmunk activity here in Maine, where the tiny critter is by far and away the loudest animal in the woods! And not very shy lately...
#1 The Distributist (Link) on 2018-07-08 17:31 (Reply)
We love them, too. We've named ours -- Chippopotamus, Chipzilla, etc.,

They do sound like a Rottweiler running through leaves.

We have lots of hawks floating around, so they're being slightly more cautious, of late...
#2 Krusty on 2018-07-08 17:47 (Reply)
Probably there is some cycle to chipmunk populations. I wonder how chipmunk population cycle compares with gypsy moth population cycle.
#3 Gringo on 2018-07-08 18:15 (Reply)
They are ridiculously cute. I've noticed a bunch of them also. And lightning bugs. It's been a great year for lightning bugs
#4 Whitney on 2018-07-08 18:22 (Reply)
Here in Tucson we have families of baby quail and baby rabbits in our yard. I haven't see the baby quail for a while and maybe the lizards got them.
They were living in a big Agave plant but maybe they got eaten.

We do see quail families but these were tiny chicks about an inch long each.
#5 Mike K (Link) on 2018-07-08 18:53 (Reply)
Flying chipmunks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4wuRA-jcg8

Watch some of his other videos if you think he's "mistreating" them...
#6 Mark Matis on 2018-07-08 19:09 (Reply)
They are wearing out there welcome here. My wife just bought a Wheaton Terrier puppy so this may be the last summer for the local chipmunks.
#7 NJSoldier on 2018-07-09 09:15 (Reply)
I prefer to sit on my front porch and feed them .17 caliber pellets. Serving size is one.
#8 kevino on 2018-07-09 10:36 (Reply)
The neighbors cat has apparently lost interest in getting rid of the destructive rodents so it looks like I'm going to have to begin trapping again.
#9 Knucklehead (Link) on 2018-07-09 14:15 (Reply)
Chipmunks are very easy to "tame." Just sit very still and offer food. A chipmunk tamed for one person is tamed for everybody.
#10 rhhardin (Link) on 2018-07-10 06:17 (Reply)

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