baffled!

The neighborhood little grey cat was sitting under the bird feeder, looking smug. Now, the NLGC is a *very* friendly critter, so I usually like it when he comes around, even if he rolls around in the catnip we have planted by the basil. But, when he's sitting under the bird feeder eying our song birds, our cats go *crazy* with envy, and that's just not fair. So on those occasions, I shoo him away. Our bird feeder is a simple thing, a post with a bunch of branches up top. The elegant bit is that halfway up the pole, there's a disc like a giant washer, and suspended from that is a tube with one open end, like a giant upside-down Pringles can. It's wide enough in diameter that nothing can climb the baffle, but instead they run up inside it, get stuck, and go home. This time, after the cat and the birds had scattered, I heard a funny noise, and eventually figured out that the NLGC had treed a squirrel in the baffle, and he just didn't want to come out. As you can tell from the fact that I had time to make multiple trips back inside for camera, mirror, flashlight, and other tricks to try and take a picture of a critter in a pitch-black tube, he wasn't going anywhere.

What made it even funnier is that when I raised the baffle to try and expose him to the air, he'd immediately crawl straight up -- for continued shelter or because it was closer to food, I don't know. And then, he'd find a stable perch on the disc that the baffle hangs from! Several times, I left the baffle resting on the squirrel as I went back inside, just because I didn't want to force it down on him -- I could see claws and nose poking up through the hole around the post as it was. I eventually rattled the baffle enough to convince him that he was better off elsewhere, and with a mighty horizontal leap to the dogwood tree, he was away. But you know, I think he came back half an hour later. "The cat's gone -- I'm sure it'll work this time!"