Tricky squirrels

We have a gang of very bold squirrels that raid our bird feeders every day. There's usually only one at a time (although we do see more occasionally), but it's not always the same one. They all have slightly different tails, so you can tell they're different squirrels (Stumpy has half a tail, then there are at least two who have full length but very thin tails and at least one with a thick bushy tail). This implies to me that there is some sort of organization to their raids. Instead of all turning up at the same garden, they must spread out and each take a different garden to ransack. Perhaps there's a grizzled old Fagan-like boss squirrel who send them out each day to do their worst!

Anyway, they seem to have moved on from just eating all the food out of the feeders and try all sorts of other tricks.

• They frequently knock the feeders off the tree branches onto the floor, then try and drag them away. Luckily the feeders are too heavy for them, so I can retrieve them.
• They chew through the rope that half coconut shells full of suet hang from. Several time I've chased a squirrel down the garden, with half a coconut in it's mouth, like a dog with a bone. Sometimes they drop it and other times they get away with it.
• Their latest trick is to chew all the way around the lid of the food store, lift off the lid and help themselves to the bags of food before it even gets put out for the birds.

They are very cute and there isn't much I can do to stop them, so we'll just have to live with it and enjoy their antics. Just wish they weren't quite so greedy!

A picture of cute, fluffy innocence