[RightOnline]

Have a smallish back yard, but heavily landscaped, terraced, etc....beautiful. It’s a sanctuary, really. Among the roses, bushes, etc. are four shepherd’s hooks holding hanging flowers and feeders (mainly hummingbird feeders).

I work in a home office that is actually the sun room, so I’m surrounded by glass and get to enjoy the beautiful, natural, peaceful surroundings all day as I toil in the field of high performance computing.

Right outside the window closest to my desk is one of these shepherd’s hooks. On it is a bird feeder. The birds love it; always a parade of them chomping away at the seed and singing happily.

Then....the squirrels. There are about four of them that haunt the place. Two, in particular.....they test me every single day. They will climb this shepherd’s hook and attack the seed in the bird feeder until I bark at them to get down. They’ll scamper off, laughing and giggling and semi-sneering at me, only to return moments later to try again. Of course, I have to stand, slam my hand on my desk or bark at them....eventually it’s just a “...don’t even try it” and they scamper and giggle.

I swear the little bastids consider it a game. They know we won’t hurt them, we even have a painted up flower pot full of seed hanging at the upper terraced level just for them. They, of course, empty that and come to get more from the bird feeder...knowing full well they shouldn’t and what will happen.

Stupid moi allowed it to become a game, as I said. Literally. If they weren’t so damned cute they’d be dead.

[Tainan]

...pellet gun.

It "neighbor-friendly quiet" and it works.
Years back I lived in a remodeled carriage house in the middle of a city. Lush trees, quiet after 1800 hrs., private...except for the squirrels.
At first they were cute. Scampering up my iron stairs...even coming into my kitchen for peanuts I'd share with them.
Then, they revealaed themselves for the urban terrorists they really are. Eating the flashing under my roof to get into the attic. Eating wiring. Building nests and sh!tting everywhere.
I notified the architects who had the front main building that I was going into war mode. They applauded.
Bought a .25 cal. pellet gun and the games began. I used urban sniper tactics and fired from inside the carriage house.
I quit counting at 25. Probably had twice that or more by the time I moved out.
Dead squirrel disposable began to be a problem. I ran out of dumpsters to dump them in. Yuppie neighbors finally began to notice the garbage bags in their dumpsters. No, I did not eat them. These were nothing more than cute city rats with bushy tails.