People Are Using Simple Physics To Stop Squirrels From Stealing Bird Food — And It Works Every Time
Squirrels might be one of the most playful creatures of the wild, but there’s one thing that often turns their playfulness into a pestering behavior. Squirrels don’t understand boundaries. They will act in ways that will make a gardener go bonkers with frustration. These rodent-sized raiders will charge your bird feeder and leave no stone unturned to grab a paw-ful of seeds and nuts you intended to feed your bird guests with. There’s nothing humans can do to shoo away these stubborn snack bandits who won’t give up until they have their hands on the food they desire so desperately.
They will shimmy up and down, spring over obstacles, and even take jumbo leaps to reach the object of their desire. But humans have something that these squirrels don’t - technology. A viral video shared by Reddit user u/FieldNervous8520 demonstrates how a person turned an intrusive squirrely looter into a spinning pole dancer, where it kept on circling in a tilt-a-whirl until disoriented and ultimately, defeated. The clue lies in a concept that physics teachers asked us to pay attention to, while we dozed off daydreaming: centrifugal force.
The short clip shows a feeder filled with seeds dangling from the branch of a tree. Within just a few seconds, a curious squirrel enters the picture, crawls over the branch, and takes a clever leap towards the feeder, jumping right into its mouth. Yet, on the way, as she swings from a wire attached to the feeder, she is left hanging from the mouth with its bushy tail trailing and whirling in the air. For a few moments, the squirrel resembles a robot-sized Simone Biles performing brilliantly in an acrobatics show. The video also features some other clips showing the same trick. “Bird feeder that uses physics to keep squirrels away,” the Reddit user captioned the post.
Seeing the squirrel getting nipped in the bud, viewers hopped in to cook up humorous stories in the comments section. “Weight-activated motor. Only skinny birds allowed,” commented u/lcl111. u/ZsoSimtheHUN said, “Those squirrels are not hungry. Just adrenaline junkies.” u/Head-Gap8455 joked, “He works hard for the money!” u/Reelthusiast contemplated scientifically, “The squirrel is high G force training for being an astronaut.” u/hammockhero quipped, “Cue Interstellar soundtrack!”
To watch this squirrel disoriented, hindered, dancing, and obstructed from its goal seems hilarious at first. But when looked at from a scientific perspective, it’s all about centrifugal force. Centrifugal, as the name suggests, is a fictitious force that pushes an object away from the center of a circular path due to the object’s inertia. Take the example of a car. When the car turns to the left, it pushes the passenger towards the left. The greater the speed of the car, the greater is the force with which the passenger is pushed sideways, Live Science explains.
Likewise, when this squirrel pounced upon the feeder, its weight activated the motor. Triggered by the motor’s abrupt rotation, the squirrel was dislodged from the feeder’s mouth and was left spinning and whirling in repetitive circular motions. The Yankee Flipper® Squirrel-Proof Bird Feeder is one such popular feeder available for purchase. “A motor-driven, weight-activated squirrel-proof feeder. It allows birds to eat and saves seed by keeping squirrels away,” Droll Yankees describe the product on YouTube.