Yeah, that’s right — you can’t get to it! Hahahahaha!
We enjoy our little victories while we can.
Yesterday, I finally stumped my adversary in the battle to keep seed in the feeder for the birds.
Yes, I’m talking about The Squirrel. I use the singular because — although it’s probably been quite a number of them over the years — I only ever see one at a time. Also, lately I think it’s been the same ctitter. He’s gotten quite fat off his crimes.
I capitalize it because we also capitalize Wile E. Coyote. Archenemies have proper names, you see. In this metaphor, the multiple birds I’m trying to feed are, collectively, the Roadrunner. (Some, after hearing of my efforts to foil the rodent, may think I’m Wile E. and The Squirrel is the Roadrunner. But I don’t accept such wildly erroneous interpretations.)
As in other forms of warfare, new measures tend to engender countermeasures. For instance the chariot was unstoppable for centuries in ancient times, but countermeasures — phalanxes, hoplites and the simple engineering feat of digging trenches — put an end to their dominance.
This, too, started simply. We used to hang feeders on a short bar from the deck rail. But that was too easy. We went to the long bar years ago. The Squirrel adopted effective countermeasures — not only climbing out on the bar and down to the feeder (sometimes hanging upside-down by their toes to eat), but more dramatically, simply leaping from the rail to the feeder. They do it in trees, so why not here.
But for some time, I have been working on a foolproof (I thought) countermeasure to their derring-do. I pondered for some time how to construct a wall along the bar that could not be bypassed — if The Squirrel tried to climb over it, it would spin around and drop him (I see him as male because as a gentleman, I refuse to have a lady as an archenemy). I found that orange thing — manufactured to sit in the bottom of a huge plant pot — at Lowe’s. It had a large hole in the middle, easily bigger than the bar.
I set it up, and put it out at a new angle. (I’m getting way technical. I’m like the Werner von Braun of anti-squirrel technology. There’s math and everything.) The new position goes straight out from the corner of the deck so that it’s at an obtuse angle from both of the rails that meet at the corner, meaning that the orange thingy would effectively block a leap from either direction.
And it worked. The picture above shows it working. This was my moment of triumph. I’m so happy I witnessed this moment and was able to photograph it. In the above image, you see The Squirrel beholding his defeat with resignation. He’s squatting there regarding my invention. He did that for five or ten words, occasionally tipping his head the way a puzzled dog does.
Finally, he walked out a bit on the rail, with the idea of trying his chances anyway. He eyed the target, and tensed his fat body up for the leap… and then changed his mind. He slunk off into the bushes you see to the right, and was not seen for the rest of the day.
I didn’t think he’d given up — not my archenemy, no way. I pictured him in his lair cooking up an invention of his own, maybe on the lines of some of these.
But what he came up with was simpler, though. He found that he still had a good angle for a leap from the bushes that you see to the right. My wife saw him pigging out on the upper level of the feeder this morning.
So I’m going to get out my poletrimmer and cut that bush back — at the very least, make it too low for him to have a good trajectory for the leap.
That’s OK. That’s the way things go — measure, countermeasure, measure, countermeasure, on and on. And yeah, I know — squirrels gotta eat, too.
But I enjoyed yesterday. I really did…
Frustratin’, ain’t it?
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By the way, where can I get me one of those Acme Mail Order Catalogs?