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Whether you hate squirrels, love them, or simply find them entertaining, it is hard to deny that squirrels are creatures well adapted to...getting food.

When food is at stake, squirrels can become downright persistent to the point they make you stand back and simply admire their gumption.

For me, I don't think they are "smart" in the way that this animal is: Stoffel, the honey badger that can escape from anywhere!, but...they have a degree of single minded purpose that can make me put my hands on my hips.

I have had long battles with squirrels, I even tried trapping them, but, like dipping a bucket in the ocean to empty it, no matter how many you catch and cart away, there is another squirrel waiting in the wings to fill in that hole!

I found a motorized bird feeder that really works: The Yankee Flipper. I put one outside my office window, and in addition to really, really working, it is extremely entertaining. This link shows the whole video I took in super slow motion which I highly recommend, but this is a GIF of what one looked like one day as I got it on film (I can't find the original GIF, but this is one I modified in the year leading up to the election:

But even then, you can see perhaps a method to its madness, where the bird seed is spewing all over the place, so...it just falls off and eats on the ground instead. I found it hard to begrudge him that after he went for the ride! And, when the battery was a little run down, he figured out how to run the weakened battery all the way down. He discovered a way to wedge his body and legs to stop the thing going around even though the motor was on, so the battery would rapidly die and he could eat in peace. When it was fully charged, he couldn't do it, and it was most entertaining to see him repeatedly try!

But best of all is this video by Mark Rober, the guy who did the glitter bomb package for porch thieves. He decided to harness his NASA engineer skills to defeat squirrels, and built an obstacle course. I found it exceedingly fun to watch:

Mark Rober Builds a Squirrel Obstacle Course to foil squirrels!

Dagnabit!

The REAL point of my verbose post at #52 was to provide the appropriate link to THIS:

CLICK TO WATCH: Mark Rober Builds a Squirrel Obstacle Course to foil squirrels!

But...

...I shot myself in the foot monologuing and screwed up my link!

I hope you don't mind being pinged again, but with all the damned depressing crap going on, anything that can make us laugh is worthwhile IMO.

Anyway...if you have never seen Mark Rober's video on this and you find squirrels funny (or even if you dislike them and want to see them launched into the air) it is well worth watching! (You can probably tell just how hilarious I find this...his narration has me in stitches) It has the following elements:

The Contestants

The Goal

The Bridge of Instability

The Maze of A Thousand Corridors

The Pitchfork Tumblers of Treachery

The Home Wrecker (a female stuffed squrrel in a bikini-stop to gape and you won't escape!)

The Slinky Bridge of Deception

The Tourist Trap (This doesn't do anything but automatically take a picture when they poke their head through to get the walnut!)

The Quad Steps of Great Elevation

The Orbital Assist Platform (AKA "The Final Countdown", AKA "It's not a Catapult-it's a Squirrelapult!" He also puts a little 3D hologram thing the displays a walnut that isn't there, just to see if any of them will spend more than three seconds trying to grab it before they go into orbit.

Well, you can watch to see if any of them defeat it!