Squirrel Wars, The Sequel...

Now that the squirrel can't get into the birdhouse, he has decided to do the next best thing.

Eat the birdseed from the bird feeder.

Now it's war.

First thing in the morning Biker Dude bent down the pet the cat. Then he went to the kitchen window and looked out. A squirrel was crouched on the platform of the bird feeder chowing down on what's supposed to be for birds only.

Biker Dude's first reaction was to run out there and nail the sucker with his slingshot. But he couldn't remember where he put the thing. So he opened the back door and grabbed the first thing he saw that was throw able, which was a piece of firewood from the wood pile.

Well, by now the squirrel is off the bird feeder and on the fence laughing... or trying to laugh. His face so full of seeds they were spitting out of his mouth.

Biker Dude tossed the piece of firewood at him, missed, and the squirrel just vanished into the lilac bushes on the other side of the patio fence.

Round one to the squirrel.

Biker Dude went into his corner, or inside, the gather his strength and come up with a strategy.

First question was, How the heck did the squirrel get on the feeder? The thing is hanging in the middle of the patio suspended by a thin clothesline, and unless the squirrel is a tightrope walker, there's no way for him to get to it.

Put yourself in the squirrel's place, he said. How would you get to it?

Well, you could jump to it from the ground I suppose. He had seen a squirrel do a vertical leap of about four feet once to get a suet cake put there for woodpeckers, and this feeder is about four and a half feet up.

So he went out there and undid the eye bolt from the garage and raised it a foot higher. Then he did the same for the eye bolt on the house.

"Ha. Let's see you get on the feeder now," Biker Dude thought. "You'll need to be super squirrel, or else start eating steroids." ( okay, ignore the fact that Biker Dude talks to squirrels... hey, at least he's not on a first name basis )

Sure enough, the next morning, Biker Dude looked out and there was the squirrel feasting as if he had breakfast reservations at Biker Dude's Diner.

He ran out there without thinking, like a chef waving a meat cleaver, and all he ended up doing was swatting at the squirrel with his hands. Pretty useless. Pretty embarrassing too when he saw the neighbor lady looking at him as she got into her car.

The squirrel retreated to the roof of the garage to gloat. Biker Dude retreated into the house trying to keep whatever dignity he had.

Round two to the squirrel.

Biker Dude fired up the CAD program and started drawing. First the garage, then the house, then the clothesline and feeder and all the heights and distances and angles. He sent the file to the printer and then laid it out on the counter top. He looked at it from all angles. If he had some fatigues or camouflage he would have put them on too.

Hmmm.. Okay. He's got to be getting to the feeder from above. Maybe he climbs the garage, and then hanging from his hands and feet like he's crossing over a pool of hot lava on a rope, he gets to the bird feeder.

So Biker Dude cut and shaped some old plastic salad dressing bottles and fit them over the clothesline near the feeder; kind of like how ships have those discs on the ropes that tie them to the dock so the rats can't climb up into the ship.

The next morning he looked out. Ha. No squirrel. But Biker Dude was not satisfied with the possibility of having won the battle. He still needed to know how the squirrel got onto the feeder.

So he watched and waited.

That got pretty old after five minutes, so he sat at the computer and did some work for a while.

Every ten minutes he got up to look outside. Maybe an hour later he looked and the squirrel was on the roof of the garage. Biker Dude backed away from the window to watch, thinking if the squirrel saw him, he wouldn't make a move.

The squirrel seemed to be studying the feeder problem from all angles. But HA, he didn't have CAD! He stood on the roof looking. Biker Dude could see him making calculations in his little pea brain. Then, after considering it, or else finally hunger getting to him, the squirrel backed up about two feet, got down like he was a sprinter in starting blocks, started to run and took a flying leap off the roof of the garage. He hung in mid air for a second like a pirate swinging from ship to ship with a knife clenched in his teeth. The he came down, right onto the clothesline, where he did hand over foot upside down until he was at the feeder.

Mystery solved.

Biker Dude went out and chased the squirrel away and then realized what he had to do next. Fix the clothesline so even if the squirrel couldn't get to the clothesline, he wouldn't be able to get a grip on it.

He went down to the basement and rummaged among his bike tools and extra parts and found exactly what he needed. He went out to the patio and gave the clothesline a thick coating of heavy lithium bicycle grease.

He debated whether to put a bed of nails or sharpened sticks below, and decided that, though it would be satisfying, it was a little extreme.


So far, it's worked. No more squirrel stealing bird seed.

It took three rounds, and several days, but Biker Dude finally thinks the battle is won.