Missouri Man Outsmarts Sneaky Squirrel in Epic Showdown

It was the battle that I didn't think I had a chance to win, but one final decision turned the tide as I managed to figure out a way to foil a sneaky and conniving Missouri squirrel and I'll share my path to victory with pictures, too.

It began with a gift to my wife on Mother's Day

My wife, the love of my life, loves animals and especially birds. That inspired me to get her a birdfeeder with a camera on it from Birdfy. What the birdfeeder camera people don't tell you is that you'll also see squirrels. Lots and lots of squirrels. One of the first pictures from the birdfeeder in our Missouri yard featured this varmint.

You might think "aw, that's cute". Well, it's not. Instead of birds, we had nothing but this dastardly squirrel who did nothing but plot new ways to invade our feeder to stuff his little thieving face. I tried greasing the bird feeder pole, but the creature just figured out how to leap from a nearby tree onto the feeder. I even asked my wife to loan me some of her essential oils because I've heard that squirrels hate peppermint. Spoiler Alert: Squirrels LOVE peppermint.

Then, I had my breakthrough Bugs Bunny "Eureka!" moment

After hours of blood, sweat and tears research, I learned that squirrels hate a certain type of bird food that most birds still adore. It's this wonderful entry into my life.

I removed the sunflower seeds from our feeder and replaced it with safflower wild bird food. It works wonders. The squirrel still made it up onto our feeder, but looked at the camera with a scowl of utter disgust. This little guy actually smacked the camera before he climbed down begrudgingly admitting defeat. Yes, that's a bit of safflower on his thieving face.

The results of this battle? Man 1, Squirrel 0. I'm not assuming that the squirrel won't try something new, but for now, I have won and our birds are now happy and have their feeder back as well.