How, o how, to stop the squirrels?

I was standing in my parents’ living room talking to Mom and Dad about weekend plans. As I was answering a question, I saw Dad glance out the window and then without a word, he rushed over to the front door and went out.

As I tried to reconcile what had just happened, I saw Dad zooming over to the bird feeder, which a squirrel had just leapt off to avoid the homeowner who was shouting at the furry freeloader.

My parents’ bird feeder (bought originally as a present for Mom) has become very popular with local birds in the last year.

Bird seed blocks are bought only to be depleted and replaced within a week or two.

This exhaustion of seed was intensified when a squirrel found the hanging feeder and sat his fuzzy butt down, gorging on the food and shooing away birds trying to get some for themselves.

The bird feeder has become a point of pride for my parents, so Dad was not content to let the rodent invader take over.

After witnessing several incidents of Dad running into the front yard to scream at the squirrel, I came over to see a section of PVC pipe installed on the chain above the feeder. This stopped the squirrel for several hours before he started rushing past the pipe to get at the feeder quicker.

The conquered obstacle was quickly joined by the metal lid of a chocolate sampler.

This flummoxed the squirrel for a few days but he bypassed the lid by jumping on it, hanging off and leaping back to the feeder. The second section of PVC pipe installed above the lid also only provided a temporary distraction.

I have seen photos and video online of similar wars waged on squirrels stealing from bird feeders. At some point, I think homeowners are accidentally training some very athletic and quickwitted rodents with obstacle courses cobbled together to keep them away from food intended for birds.

My girlfriend’s mother ran into a similar problem and eventually decided to put in a separate feeder for squirrels to try to keep them away from the bird feeder.

When Wyndi told the story to my dad, she didn’t get much of a reaction and why would she?

Building a separate feeder and buying more food would be admitting defeat. The battle has begun and the first defenses have been installed.

In discussing the conflict with Sara at the office, we came up with several viable options for combatting the squirrel invasion.

1. Motion-activated holiday decorations

Installing a motion activated pumpkin that screams “Happy Halloween” or a Santa that waves near the feeder might work to temporarily keep the squirrel away, but it will likely also scare the birds. It is also likely that neighbors will think you’re tacky if you keep loud or animated holiday decorations up in the spring and summer.

2. Baby monitor

Installing one end of a baby monitor on the feeder and then screaming into it when the squirrel approaches offers a much more direct way of keeping squirrels away but not birds. Plus it can be transmitted from the comfort of a chair. The downside is you’re likely to scare any other humans or animals in the house when you pick up the receiver and scream from time-to-time. The receivers will also have to be charged.

3. Slingshot/rocks

This solution is very cheap since rocks are, you know, all over the ground. However, practice is required so you d o n ’ t accidentally start throwing rocks in the street or neighbors’ yards. The homeowner may not want to risk actually hurting the squirrel as well.

4. Separate squirrel feeder

The benefit of this solution is that it pacifies the squirrel and it can be filled with denser squirrel food to make it lazier and slower instead of training it into a bird seed gladiator through outside-the-box obstacle courses. There is no guarantee that the squirrel won’t prefer the bird feeder though and this is admitting defeat so it is not a viable option.

We weren’t able to come up with a definitive solution to the problem, but sometimes life presents us with problems without easy solutions, whether it’s forming a political solution to make everyone happy or outsmarting a battlehardened, bird seed stealing squirrel.

Paul Gaudette is the managing editor at the Dublin Citizen and can be reached at 445-2515 and publisher@dublincitizen.com.