Squirrel II: the sequel for readers

The unwritten rules of the column business dictate that when the holiday at hand is Merry Christmas – if I dare be so politically incorrect as to use that lately discredited phrase – the subject matter must be of an un-heavy nature so as not to add to the clientele’s already considerable seasonal depression.

Squirrel II: The Sequel, would seem to fill the bill. Two weeks ago, I suggested that there presently is no such thing as a “squirrel-proof” bird feeder, and there’s little hope that any of us will live long enough to outsmart the squirrels that regularly raid our back yard bird feeders. That provoked received reader response the likes of which I haven’t seen since instigating a hair-pull over where Down East begins and ends.

By e-mail and by snail mail it came. From hardened veterans of the squirrel wars who have declared victory over the marauding rodents, and from rank amateurs offering accounts of their own humiliation in commiseration. I received photos of bird-feeding contraptions that allegedly have thwarted the squirrels, raccoons and possibly the occasional armadillo, and – from Urban Hughes of Houlton – a blueprint for an elongated horizontal squirrel shield consisting of rotatable empty pop bottles, baling wire and official State of Maine duct tape that you place on each side of the feeder. It is, he claims, “89.6 percent squirrel-proof.” Doug Ronco of Winterport offered a tip for waging rodent guerrilla warfare, test-proven by his late stepfather, that would surely place make me Public Enemy Number One with the animal-rights crowd were I numb enough to pass it on. (A more benign approach, involving a high-powered water pistol, was signed simply “George,” with no hometown listed.)

This outpouring of helpful hints is a reassuring indication that my readership is – as I have long suspected – a tad squirrely, with a flair for Yankee ingenuity the equal of the late madcap inventor, Rube Goldberg.

“Mount the bird feeder on a metal post and coat it with Ben Gay. This will usually discourage squirrels,” advised birdhouse maker Loring Munson Sr. of Lubec. Plastic milk jugs mounted on the feeder’s suspension system deter their neighborhood squirrels, counseled John Hawksley of Mars Hill and Reg Bamford of Bangor. A feeder attached via suction cups to his picture window does the job for John Wellington of Southwest Harbor.

“Try a kid’s toy [metal Slinky] attached to the bottom of a bird feeder around a metal pipe pole mount. It’s the only squirrel-proof feeder we have seen to work, and the best show in the world,” wrote Ron Bugenske, no address listed.

Florida resident Robert Layton wrote that his Florida squirrels, like my Maine squirrels, chewed his plastic tubular feeder so badly he sent it back to the manufacturer. Upon inspecting the damage “the manufacturer advised us not to venture into the back yard without a baseball bat. Now we have a feeder that looks like medieval chain mail and the squirrels are not the least interested. However, the birds love it…”

Using ingenuity she says was “gleaned in The County,” Betty Higgins of Ellsworth scrunched a bunch of chicken wire into a ball which she pushed into the hanger loop above her tubular feeder, twisting the many ends outward and upward. “The squirrel slid up to the hook curve but could get no further. It may have spread the word. Score: Betty, l; Squirrel, 0.”

Frank McCormack, no address listed, recommended a planted 8-foot length of 4-inch PVC pipe with a metal rod protruding horizontally through the top to hold a feeder on each side. Space does not permit doing justice to a description of Hap O’Brien’s Dover-Foxcroft squirrel-discouraging masterpieces which employ a plastic cake plate, washer, hose clamps, plastic fruit bowl, old electric light fixture and a “crimped spade-lug which I had lying around.” Plus an active imagination.

Sally Field of Hampden suggested a squirrel guard that looks like a piece of stovepipe mounted on the pole between ground and feeder. (Been there, done that). Jerome Emerson of Corinna provided a variation on that theme, using an old milk strainer mounted upside down on the metal pole that supports his bird feeder. “I have never seen a squirrel in it… Of course, the squirrels here in Corinna may not be as smart or agile as the ones you have down there in Winterport,” he wrote. He included his mailing address “in case there may be some sort of award.”

His reward, of course, will come in Heaven. As will yours, for your impressive readership loyalty. A politically incorrect Merry Christmas to all.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.