MEADOWMOLT9:15 A.M.
BACKYARD SQUIRREL DEFEATS 'SQUIRREL-PROOF' FEEDER, INVESTIGATORS CALL IT 'AN INSIDE JOB'
Manufacturer's guarantee lasted an estimated forty minutes; the squirrel has since filed no comment and eaten everything.
A bird feeder marketed and sold as "100% squirrel-proof" was fully compromised within an hour of installation Monday, sources report, after a local squirrel studied it briefly, disappeared, and returned with what witnesses described as "a strategy."
The feeder, which cost more than its owner is willing to disclose, featured a spring-loaded perch, a weighted cage, and a tapered dome specifically engineered to defeat climbing rodents. It was installed at 8:30 A.M. By 9:15, the squirrel was inside it.
"I watched the whole thing," said the homeowner, who has requested the squirrel be referred to only as "him." "He tried the direct approach and the perch dropped him. Fine. Working as intended. Then he sat on the fence for a while and just... thought about it. You could see him thinking."
What followed, witnesses say, was "a leap that should not have been possible" from an adjacent tree branch, bypassing every defensive mechanism the feeder possessed and landing the squirrel directly in the seed tray, "where he made himself comfortable and ate for twenty minutes."
Investigators reviewing the branch in question noted it was "much too far away" and "not something we thought was a factor." The homeowner has since trimmed the branch. The squirrel, undeterred, located a second branch by the following morning.
"It's an inside job at this point," the homeowner said. "He knows the yard better than I do. The birds haven't seen the feeder in days. It's just his now. It has always been his. I was foolish to think otherwise."
Wildlife officials confirmed that no feeder has ever been genuinely squirrel-proof and that the label is best understood as "a challenge issued to a highly motivated athlete."
The squirrel remains at large, well-fed, and, sources say, "getting bolder."