Bruce Cameron

Feb 26, 20140

Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2009.

Last week, I explained that despite the fact that I had poured (plainly labeled) bird seed into a (universally recognizable) bird feeder in order to feed (well, duh) birds, a lawless squirrel had invaded. This so intimidated the local birds that they weren’t landing in the feeder, though I suppose they might also have been put off by the way my dog and I kept noisily charging out the door to curse at the squirrel.

In the face of this injustice, I felt I had no choice but to deploy advanced human weaponry, using my son’s squirt gun to hose down the squirrel and send it scampering. I settled into a chair on the porch, water gun in my lap, a study in vigilance.

And then I got hit with a pinecone.

That’s right, a pinecone smacked me on the crown of my head. I thought the tree itself had just dealt an improbable blow — pinecones do fall of their own accord, after all. But when the second one stung my scalp, I looked up and there was the squirrel, eyes glinting, hauling himself up the evolutionary ladder from nut-gatherer to projectile-thrower in one afternoon.

Here’s something they should teach you in Special Forces: If you fire a squirt gun straight up at a squirrel who is trying to concuss you, most of the water will cascade back on your face.

The squirrel nearly fell out of the tree, it was laughing so hard. I stomped into the house, yelling at my dog, who despite the battle raging in the front yard was napping in the living room. He seemed offended to be so rudely awakened, but that’s what happens in the military: You always pick on someone of lower rank.

“Go out there, and scare the squirrel away!” I instructed. He raced outside, his fur an angry ridge on his back, but apparently thought my orders had been, “Go to the garage, knock over the trashcan, and eat something from it.”

Then I was struck with a brilliant thought: Hey, I was at least as advanced a creature as my rodent adversary, even if it was some sort of ninja squirrel. I went out into the yard and looked up at my enemy, who was now on the flat part of my roof, watching coldly. I picked up a pinecone and tossed it at the squirrel, who immediately withdrew.

“He didn’t know I could throw back,” I explained to the dog, who gazed at me worshipfully — my pet might not be good at executing orders, but he was great at sucking up to the boss.

Then the squirrel reappeared at the edge of the roof, the pinecone in its jaws. With a flick of its head, it pitched the pinecone back down at me. My dog snapped into retriever mode, pouncing on the pinecone, racing over to me and dropping it at my feet.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I said to the squirrel.

I took aim and fired another shot, though I have to say that as weapons go, pinecones lack a certain ferocity, even though they do sting when they crack you on the head. “You are so lucky I don’t have a hand grenade,” I told the squirrel, which was probably true for me, as well.

I tried over and over to hit my target, always missing, and every time it would disappear for a moment, bringing back the pinecone and pitching it down to my dog.

And then it struck me how extraordinary this inter-species game of catch and fetch truly was, and how I had gotten caught up in trying to toss the pinecone softly and accurately enough for the squirrel to snare it mid-air, as it had learned to do for the dog. Truth be told, I sort of liked the little critter, now. The three of us were having fun together.

A few days later, when I picked up more birdfeed, I also bought some peanuts for the squirrel.

What the heck — we were on the same team.

(Bruce Cameron has a website at http://www.wbrucecameron.com.)