There is a war going on in my back yard! On this side, wearing the white hat, is me, six-foot-two, 200 pounds, several college degrees, numerous advanced seminars and workshops, vast experience in the U.S. Navy, in industry and in education. On that side, the villains, are five gray squirrels, total weight perhaps 15 pounds, each with a brain the size of a walnut. At first glance, it seems to be a total mismatch. It is! The squirrels are winning.

This war started over a bird feeder. I purchased a new feeder, filled it with a choice mixture of wild bird seed, and hung it from a limb so my resident birds could enjoy my generosity. I feel no obligation to feed the local squirrel population. After all, they can’t sing and they are not very pretty to look at. I will admit that in the depth of winter I sometimes provide a few ears of corn, but otherwise they are on their own.

How wrong I was. Do you have any idea how far a squirrel can leap from the trunk of a tree to a feeder? I measured it at a maximum of 5 1/2 feet. This gang is smart. One would leap to the feeder and shake out the seeds. The other four would gather on the ground below and feast. I might have tolerated this but they insisted on chewing up all the plastic parts of the feeder. So I began to move the feeder further from the trunk, looking for that point where they could no longer make the leap. Finally, at over 6 feet, they would no longer risk it. At that point, I was ready to claim victory. Fat chance! This feeder was hanging by a wire. One of the enterprising bandits soon learned to slide down the wire, head first.
Occasionally he would miss, and take a fall, but this didn’t seem to deter him. He would scamper back up the tree and try again. The feed bill was going up, and the damage to the feeder increasing.

At this point I counter-attacked. I hung the feeder on 10 pound test monofilament fishing line, reasoning that the villains could not slide down something that thin. I was partially correct. The squirrels wouldn’t attempt the head first slide. Instead, one crept down a tiny twig, something so small even a bird would hesitate to land on it. He positioned himself over the feeder and dropped straight down on it. I was astonished, especially so when on the third assault he broke the line.

At this point I invested in a baffle, a half-bubble of plastic that hangs above the feeder. After seeing how tippy this was, I decided my problems were over. I re-hung the feeder, this time from a stout cord. I didn’t care if the squirrels climbed down the cord, because they couldn’t get around the baffle. To make it easy for me to refill the feeder, I hung it much lower than before. Bad mistake! A gray squirrel has a vertical leap of 46 inches. If Michael Jordan could leap as high in proportion to his height as a squirrel, he would play, not above the rim, but above the back-board! After watching this phenomenon a few times, I raised the feeder, and thought the battle was over. They would crawl down the line, but the baffle was so slick and tippy they were slipping off and falling to the ground before they could get to the feeder. Chalk one up for the superior intelligence of humans. I had defeated them. And then they chewed the line in two, and brought the feeder crashing to the ground! By the time I discovered this, they had damaged the feeder so extensively I had to throw it away.

There are many feeders on the market advertised as “squirrel-proof.” I purchased one, a nice metal unit, with a spring-loaded shelf. Birds could land on this with no problem, but the weight of a squirrel would close the gate, preventing them from getting to the food. Now, I was sure I had them. So sure, that when I installed this feeder on a wooden pole, I didn’t even bother to keep it far from the tree. I didn’t care.
Let them leap on it, or crawl up the pole. It made no difference. They couldn’t possibly get to the food. Wrong! It took my squirrels about 27 seconds to figure out how to defeat this. They crawled up the pole, arched their bodies around the spring-loaded shelf, and munched away happily. I moved the feeder from the pole, and hung it from a wire, thinking that if they couldn’t use leverage from the pole, they couldn’t reach the food. Wrong again! They slid down the wire, hung upside down, and continued feeding.

A friend advised me to try an additive to the bird food. This contains a type of pepper which, in theory at least, squirrels do not like but does not bother the birds. This theory may well be correct as regards New England squirrels, or maybe even those from the far West. My gang are Southern, with a lot of Cajun and Tex-Mex ancestry. They like hot food. I began to increase the proportions, finally to the point where the birds would not longer eat the seed. The squirrels kept feasting, although I noticed they seemed to drink a lot more water from the bird bath.

Another neighbor advised me to hang the feeder from a bungee cord. He said squirrels do not like to bounce when they are feeding. I tried his advice. My squirrels immediately invited all their squirrel friends in the neighborhood to a bungee-bouncing contest.

At that point I went back to the drawing board, determined to devise some plan that would defeat these monsters. I spent several hours on the Internet, searching for miniature land-mines, or electrified fencing suitable for a back-yard environment. Nothing seemed to be available. My next plan was to put the feeder on a greased pole, in the middle of the yard, far away from any trees. The pole would be surrounded by a moat, preferably populated by miniature alligators. However, considering how far these rascals can jump, the moat would have to be as large as a swimming pool. The wife vetoed this idea.

I am still searching for a fool-proof scheme. In the meantime, the gang of 5 are still eating my birdseed. The wife says they have me out-gunned. She claims they all have advanced degrees in strategy and tactics. Maybe so. But I have just begun to fight!

Al Manning lives in Waynesville and can be reached at amanning@asap-com.com.

 

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The Smoky Mountain News