Steve Moseley

We discovered clever baffles one can purchase and affix to the pole beneath the feeder. A quick internet search revealed these devices, as clever as they are simple.

Photo courtesy Steve Moseley

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I wonder, do you feed wild birds in your Wyoming yard? If so, I bet you engage in squirrel skirmishes daily. Me, too.

It’s been a rolling gun battle here in tall corn country Newbrasskey between me and the dang varmints for several years. They thrust, I parry. I thrust, they parry. They win, I lose. On and on it goes the year round.

It was the same in Powell on Cary Street where my only defense was a wire-haired wiener dog named Prissy. Shaken squirrel syndrome was her special talent and if she got hold of them it was always fatal.

Not only have the rodents been winning since returning from Wyoming so many years ago, I have failed to defend a single iota of what little remains of my manly dignity.

They were eating me out of house and home here in the flat country. But then, just lately, the worm turned. Victory was mine. At least for now.

After all attempts to stymie the athletic little critters or at least slow their gluttony crashed and burned, I came up with a different angle. Call it a whole new battle strategy.

The tube feeder with two perches for small birds (foreground in the photo) vexed the bejesus out of the resident squirrels. The perches are spring loaded, the better to slide down, close the opening and deny access to anything larger than a robin.

How hilarious it is to watch squirrels scramble up the metal rod to the suspended tube, only to be left bereft of tasty treats despite all acrobatic attempts to wrap themselves over, under and around the feeder like the diabolical contortionists they are.

Though the tube feeder has held the little buggers at bay for quite a while, the nearby open tray feeder (background) was being horribly and routinely abused.

The dang varmints climbed the pole or leaped from the adjacent fence no end. The gluttony not only emptied my seed stores but worse, their bully presence chased all the birds away.

This must not be allowed to stand, but what to do?

Go straight to Google, that’s what, which is where we discovered clever baffles one can purchase for cheap and affix to the pole beneath the feeder. A quick internet search revealed our local Tractor Supply stocks these devices, as clever as they are simple. Thus one was soon in hand, purchased for reasonable money and installed under the close supervision of Good Wife Norma, the maven of tools on our assigned corner of Fairview Drive.

A bit more online probing revealed fox squirrels can jump only so far, perhaps 12 feet at best. This suggested a relocation of the feeder. So, we pulled it up and moved it nearer the wall of the house and a few feet farther from the fence.

Eureka! A positive outcome was revealed at last.

What fun to watch the hairy beasts climb the pole flicking their evil bushy hindparts, encounter the baffle and flop awkwardly to the ground in indignity when it twists and bounces upon all attempts to breach the flexible, plastic miracle dome (background in the photo).

Thus, life has been ripe with bliss of late for the birds and also for me. Probably not so for the squirrels that are now properly relegated to cleaning up waste seed on the ground below. Exactly as the backyard birdfeeder gods intended.

Now, if I could only figure out how to run off the dang obnoxious blackbirds and those annoying Eurasian collared doves.

Back to the drawing board.