My parents put a birdfeeder outside every winter. A wonderful array of birds used to stop by for birdseed. The most striking were the bright red cardinals. And when the season started to turn, we’d keep an eye out for the red-breasted robin, the harbinger of spring. There seems to be less of a variety of species now, but the cute chickadees still come by, picking their way through the seeds to get to their favorite sunflower seeds. My dad has a constant battle with the squirrels. They’d always come by, scare away the birds and have their fill. My dad started altering the cylindrical bird feeder to discourage them. But those rascally creatures are smart and agile. They could clamber across the horizontal wire the feeder was hung from and eat their meal upside down. When he changed the hanging method, they would take flying leaps from nearby trees and land on the feeder (most of the time). He put a narrow, metal cone on top of the cylinder so they would slip off when they tried to grasp it. They were stymied for a little while, but soon learned to deal with that too. I kept telling my dad that he was just breeding smarter squirrels. He’s given up, mostly. But I still think he may be secretly plotting his next move. I almost don’t want to send him a pointer to this feeder that zaps squirrel visitors (found on memepool).