Nature has a way of circumventing everything man puts in her path. If determined enough, an animal will do anything possible, especially for food. Mice will travel through mazes, dogs will do stupid tricks and cats, well, cats will bug their owner until they're fed.
My family has four bird feeders outside our kitchen window. They're near the edge of the backyard, and hung off of two thin, black poles which have two branches on either side. This is the fourth incarnation of bird feeders we've had. We've strung them from trees, hung them off of the house, done just about anything to keep the damn squirrels away.
Yeap, grey squirrels. Fat bastards who will bully the birds out of the way to get to the bird feeders. These guys are truly determined to get on the bird feeder. I've seen a squirrel make a flying leap of doom from a 12 foot high branch four times before finally hitting the feeder and holding on to his precarious perch. With the current setup, the squirrels can just run up the poles and lean back until they grasp onto the feeder, then pull themselves up.
It is not unusual to see one of these fatties gorging on birdseed, however, while washing my plate this morning, I noticed something really strange. I saw a chipmunk in the feeder. Well, not exactly inside the feeder, where the birdseed is, but between an outer grating and the bird feeder. Chipmuonks are not a rare sight around here. There are plenty of holes all over our two acres where these small rodents run around and hide. They can often be seen on the ground near the bird feeders, next to the morning doves, feasting on fallen seed. Needless to say, I was surprised to see one off of the ground and in the feeder. It couldn't have hopped across the pole like the squirrel did, could it? I can't really say I know much about chipmunk physiology, especially their leaping ability, but I'd imagine it would be quite difficult to backflip onto the feeder like they'd need to. I highly doubt a grey squirrel would allow one to piggy back up ot the feeder. Sure, it's not as puzzling as to where Jimmy Hoffa is buried, or even who's buried in Grant's tomb, but it still boggles me. Especially how the little guy is gonna get down from there.