Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 08:25:48 -0800 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Scott Baron Subject: red squirrel MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I believe that I've read that squirrels will eat eggs and birds but I never saw it happen until this past June in the White Mts. of New Hampshire. I saw a Red Squirrel sitting in a tree, eating what I thought was a mushroom. I looked through my binoculars and was shocked to see that the "mushroom" had feathers, legs and feet. There was a family of Brown Creepers in the immediate area. The parents seemed to be unconcerned with the squirrel's presence, as they seemed to be feeding normally in nearby trees. I also saw what I assume was the dead Creeper's sibling because it was having trouble flying. It fell out of one of the trees and into some saplings. I'm guessing that this squirrel raided the Creeper nest and took a young bird. Meanwhile the other young bird, not quite ready to fledge yet, must have jumped out in fear. By the time I arrived at this spot, the squirrel had probably been feeding for a while. When I left several minutes later, the squirrel was still eating the bird. S. Baron Fairfax, Va. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Web Hosting - Let the expert host your site http://webhosting.yahoo.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================