My parents have a walnut tree. There must have been 30,000 walnuts on that tree earlier this year. Visions of walnuts everywhere danced in our heads. Then the squirrels arrived. Those hairy bastards! Naturally I was consulted as the “biologist” of the family, and after first half heartedly suggesting we shoot them, I came up with the idea of a “squirrel baffle”. Normally found on bird feeders and the like, the idea was adapted to ring the bottom of the walnut tree as to discourage the nut pilferers. Sadly, the thievery continued due to other potential entry points to the walnut tree. The crop was ultimately lost.
However, something was learned from this experience that I never considered before. My dogs were one day chasing a squirrel across the yard. The squirrel attempted to run up the trunk of the walnut tree. If you imagine a metal, two foot deep, ring of metal circling the bottom of the tree, then you understand our adapted squirrel baffle apparatus. So the squirrel ran up the tree where it collided with the baffle making a sound that can only be described as the sound one would hear whacking a tennis ball into a cookie sheet. The squirrel immediately employed alternate methods in escape from the dogs, and I should point out that it was extremely successful with no apparent harm done.
I came away from this experience not only with an appreciation for how hard squirrel's heads must be, but the knowledge that they have a tremendous understanding of physical comedy.