We like to feed the birds that visit our back yard. Yes, I know. The hard working birds that refuse to accept our handouts are out in the cold working hard to feed their families while lazy birds, willing to go on welfare flock to our feeder. They probably consider it an entitlement. Nature's balance is being overturned by our support of non-producing birds. We don't care. We're lucky enough to be born high on the food chain; we've got enough food for ourselves; and we're willing to share it with other, less fortunate creatures.
But not with the fucking squirrels.
Squirrels, as far as we are concerned, should work for a living. They should not prey on the largesse that we provide for out-of-work birds.
The problems have no respect for human intentions. We're feeding birds with a bird feeder. It says that on the box. In fact, it says that it's a "squirrel-proof bird feeder." Can't the damned squirrels read?
The "squirrel-proof bird feeder" was never squirrel proof. As soon as we put it up, strung on a wire between two trees in our back yard, squirrels discovered they could walk across the wire, drop down on the top of the bird feeder, hang down, holding on with their hind legs, then drop down and catch themselves on the little spring mounted perches that hold the weight of a bird, but tip when something heavier lands on them.
Unless the thing that lands on them has hands. Or paws, or whatever it is that squirrels have. Didn't think about that, did you, squirrel-proof-bird-feeder-designers, did you? As they drop down a squirrel grabs the perch with its little fore-appendages, arch its little furry back, grabs the opposite perch with its hind appendages, and then sticks its furry nose in the bird-food-dispensing-aperture in front of the perch, and mows away.
Our first solution was to invert a clear plastic bowl over the top. That made vertical envelopment, "a maneuver in which troops, either air-dropped or air-landed, attack the rear and flanks of a force, in effect cutting off or encircling the force" according to Wikipedia, impossible. But squirrels have other tactics: they jumped from the tree to the left of the feeder and caught themselves on the perch on the way down. Munch munch! I moved the feeder until it was out of range of leaping squirrels from the left, and not yet in range of squirrels that attempted to leap from the top of one of The Three Sisters to the right.
And for a while, there was a standoff. The squirrels contented themselves with the seed that birds dropped on the ground. Occasionally they would longingly eye the feeder. Sometimes they'd climb the tree and staring at it, wondering if they could make the leap. But they'd learned better.
Until the recent snows raised ground level to within squirrel-leaping-distance of the bottom of the feeder. Once they found that they could do that, it was all over. They remembered leaping from the trees, and with less far to fall, quickly perfected their abilities.
The war was on again!
But man is not to be overcome by squirrel. At least this particular man is not to be overcome by those particular squirrels. I repurposed the roof-rake that I bought to clear our porch skylight and other roof surfaces as a temporary feeder holder. It sits in the yard, stuck in the deep snow. The plastic shield that eventually replaced the upside-down bowl and which used to be on top of the feeder has been moved so that it prevents assault from below.
But soon the snow will melt and the rake will no longer stand. What then?
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