Bird-loving Americans share a common problem: squirrels! These fast, greedy, incredibly crafty, fluffy-tailed rodents pillage birdfeeders before owners' very eyes. For 25 years, Outwitting Squirrels has been leading the charge to help bird lovers defend their feeders. This classic defense manual for the besieged birder has been fully updated to deal with the more tech-savvy twenty-first-century squirrel. It provides 101 cunning strategies, both serious and hilarious, for outsmarting these furry, but not so cute, creatures. Adler discusses the different bird personalities and the best seed to attract them. He rates birdfeeders based upon how squirrel-proof, or squirrel-vexing, they are and discusses creative antisquirrel structures and devices. Spooker poles, Perrier bottles, baffled fishing line, Teflon spray, Vaseline, water bombs, cayenne pepper, and Nixalite--the author has tried them all, and here he regales intrepid bird feeders with his squirrel-thwarting adventures and misadventures.
"Ingenious tricks to keep squirrels from eating all the seed when the feeders fail." -- Washington Post
"A masterpiece on squirrel strategy." -- The Wall Street Journal
"Now for the first time, the sum of human knowledge about squirrels and the strategies to defeat them are available in one place." -- Booklist
"Innovative schemes for skunking squirrels." -- USA Today
"An indispensable guidebook." -- Country Almanac
"Switch Bill Murray for Bill Adler Jr. and the gopher for a squirrel, and you've got this humorous little guide book in a nutshell." --New Orleans Times-Picayune
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Author's Note on the Third Edition -- 1. Misadventures with Squirrels -- 2. Attracting Birds and Bird Personalities -- 3. Know the Enemy: Everything a Bird Feeder Needs to Know About Squirrels -- 4. The Unbearable Persistence of Squirrel Appetites -- 5. Rating the Feeders -- 6. Homebrewed Feeders -- 7. Over-the-Counter Antisquirrel Structures and Devices -- 8. 101 Cunning Stratagems -- 9. Advanced Antisquirrel Stratagems -- 10. Protecting Gardens and Flowers -- 11. The Feline Menace -- 12. What to Do if You Think Squirrels Are Cute -- 13. Quitting -- Resources.
Bill Adler Jr. is the author of more than 20 books including How to Negotiate Like a Child: Unleash the Little Monster Within to Get Everything You Want and Boys and Their Toys: Understanding Men by Understanding Their Relationship with Gadgets. In his spare time, he studies Japanese and flies airplanes.
Chicago Review Press
Pub Date: April 01, 2014
0.6" H x 8.3" L x 5.4" W
220 pages
paperback