Please Do/Don't Feed The Animals

I can never pass up a free meal, and neither, apparently, can many animals at Mohican Lake. Once these five-finned, four-legged, or two-winged friends get a handout, they return same time, same place, different day expecting another.

Although I no longer feed the birds or the chipmunks (see "Chippy the Chipmunk RIP" below), that hasn't deterred these creatures from turning up every morning with nosebags. As soon as I get close to the picture window, Nutty the nuthatch lands on the railing looking for sunflower seeds. And once Nutty alights, Chicky the chickadee or Titty the titmouse swoops in for a looksee.

Last year, cottage guests and I took baked chicken on the float for a late-afternoon dinner. The bits of chicken meat that we dropped into the water drew a voracious school of sunfish and blue gill. My guests were so tickled by the experience that they repeated this ritual for the rest of their stay. Weeks later fish would gather when I went to the float to swim. In fact, I had to cover a large brown mole on my back with a band aid because, if I swam at about 5 o'clock pm, fish would pick at it. (Ouch.)

Bald Eagles, too, aren't above scavenging, or even begging. During ice fishing season, the eagles will scoff down fish guts left on the ice by the fisherman. One winter, a full-grown bald eagle stood watch on the ice about 30 feet from a group of fisherman who were periodically throwing it fresh caught fish.

My brother tells this eagle story from one of his summer visits to Mohican Lake. An eagle, perched on the branch of a dead standing pine, watched my brother fish from a rowboat just off the northwest shore near Blueberry Island. He caught a perch, but instead of immediately dropping it in the water, he thought he'd throw it in the air to see what the eagle would do. That eagle launched from its perch on cue, missed the fish by yards, but proved it had probably done that before.

Chippie the Chipmunk, RIP

Warning: This story might make you think twice about feeding the wild animals.

About a month ago, I began putting a row of raw sunflower seeds on the railing of my deck, just in the morning. Even though I’d argued with people like my Aunt Helen, for example, that feeding the animals interfered with nature, I did it anyway because I found it entertaining.

The seed would mostly attract nuthatches and tufted titmice until Chippie the Chipmunk discovered the food source, and would climb the rail and vacuum clean every last seed until his pouches were full. If I knocked on the picture window, or went to the deck and scared him away, he’d keep coming back until he succeeded.

Today it was different. I bought a bag of dark oil sunflower seeds on my daily trip the market. First time I'd purchased special seeds for the birds, first time I'd put seeds out past noon. It attracted dozens of birds, but no Chippie, and even though it was raining, sometimes heavily, the birds came anyway.

About 1pm, I finally saw Chippie, not eating seeds on the railing, but climbing a tree just outside the front porch window. He stopped at my eye level and looked. I think he was looking at me.

An hour passed. I walked through the living room. Something caught my eye. I looked out the picture window. I saw Chippie on another tree, far up the trunk. Suddenly, a very large red-tailed hawk swooped to the tree, grabbed Chippie in his talons, pulled him off the bark, and flew two lots down.

At first I said, well, nature has taken its course, and then I thought, no, if it hadn’t been for me feeding the animals, Chippie wouldn’t be Red’s lunch.

I ran to the next yard, saw the hawk, heard Chippie squeaking. I ran at the hawk, but it flew through the trees with the chipmunk dangling from its talons. Suddenly it started to pour rain. My glasses were covered with water so I couldn't see a damn thing. I didn’t see the hawk anywhere, but I heard Chippie. He squeaked for a long time.

I haven't seen a bird on the railing since the incident.