John's been going back and forth between being annoyed at the squirrels getting into his bird feeders and being appreciative of their ingenuity and athleticism. One of them even knocked the feeder onto the ground and broke it.
The feeders are a wire strung between two trees, with empty 2-liter bottles threaded onto the wire (about 4-5 at each end). The bottles spin when a squirrel tries to cross them and throw the squirrel onto the ground. Only the most agile ever get across the bottles onto the wire. So the question became "How are they getting out there?".
I noticed the branches of a nearby Althea (Rose of Sharon) bush near the house bouncing up and down - much more than the wind or a bird could cause. That crafty squirrel had figured out that he could jump from that branch to the wire and then to the feeder. John popped him with the BB gun, and he jumped off the feeder. And about 5 minutes later, he was back making the jump again.
So John was off to get the limb-loppers and cut a couple of the offending limbs off the bush. Poor squirrel! He tried several other limbs, but they just didn't work. Then he tried some limbs in a couple of other nearby trees, but they weren't suitable.
Score for today: John 1, Squirrel 0.
Stay tuned!
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