The Great Chipmunk Mystery

When I moved to this apartment 15 months ago I put up a birdfeeder. It took a week for the birds to find it , but only hours for the chipmunks to get here. I put a bowl of sunflower seeds on the floor of my covered porch as well, and when I walked at the Warner Parks I picked up sacks of pignuts and mockernuts. This helped cut down on the cost of birdseed.

I do not know if the 7 chipmunks I hosted were family, but they certainly hated one another enough to be. They quarreled, and spit, and chittered, and chased each other away. They reminded me of hummingbirds- always looking for a fight. They hurled themselves from the porch railing and the tops of chairs onto the hanging birdfeeder when pickings grew slim on the ground. Some were fatter than others. One had no tail. They interested the beagle intermittently, but mesmerized the Shih Tzu. The little dog knew their chipping so well that he would stop dead on our walks at Percy Warner when he heard their alarms.

The chipmunks built a suburb under the cedar tree outside my bedroom window. They dug hole homes and stashed the seeds and nuts they carried away. Some commuted. I would see them running up and down the stairs to upper apartments and the parking lots behind them. These lived under landscape timbers. They burrowed under the concrete foyers. They skittered across the parking like fallen sycamore leaves in a high wind.

Cardinals came to my feeder. House finches. Chickadees and titmice and house sparrows and towhees. They are out there now. But the chipmunks are gone. Even in the 60 degree weather of 2 weeks ago when we saw them at the park they did not come. They vanished in October when it was far too early and warm to go underground for the winter.

I saw the grounds people spraying the lawns in October, probably for grubs or weeds. Could this have killed the chipmunks? I began to spin conspiracy theories- The apartment people might have poisoned them for digging holes. Someone might have complained- This was a hard theory to prop up since killing the cute and furry never goes over well anywhere. In addition, the Maintenence people here are so casual that they have allowed bushes to grow in the gutters on the covered parking sheds. Hard to believe they would care about small, striped rodents.

Time to apply Occam's Razor- that the simplest explanation is most likely to be true-
And that explanation is that three huntresses have moved in. A tabby. A tortoise-shell, and a fuzzy gray cat now live here. I see them slinking and lurking around even on my porch. There are low to the ground holly hedges they can hide under to plan their ambushes.

There are more chipmunks up on the forest verge , and when the cats' owners leave (and they will, for these are apartments) the chipmunks will come back. They may be back sooner. Cats are not top predator here. Up in the woods there are coyotes, Barred owls, Great Horned owls, Red-tailed Hawks. Cats may be on the menu. She who lives by the claw may die by the claw. Be careful Kitty!