Yesterday's adventure began when I heard our electronic air cleaner go a bit nuts. From my basement office, I can hear the occasional "zap" when dust particles are vaporized, or whatever happens to dust particles in the cleaner. It sounds sort of like a small insect hitting one of those bug-zappers thingies.
This time, however, I could hear bursts of activity (
zip ZAPPITYZAP zipzap ZAPPITY) every so often. Odd. I mentioned this to Jeff, asking if it might have anything to do with the squirrel that we've been hearing in our house recently. Jeff says he doubted that the squirrel could be in the air ducts, that it must be something else.
As we started dinner that evening, we heard the sound again.
"Hm," said Jeff. "I wonder if the squirrel DID get stuck in an air duct?"
He went down to the basement to investigate. A few minutes later, he called me down.
Apparently the squirrel had fallen down an air duct (see "A" in photo above) that led to the electronic air cleaner (see "B"). There was a sliding filter that separated A from B, so the squirrel was stuck at the bottom of "A." Every time he scrambled around, it must have stirred up dust...hence the hyperactive dust-zapping.
The problem: how to get him out? And we didn't want him accidentally getting into "C", which is our furnace. We also assumed that this one of the big black demon squirrels (and I'd seen how aggressive they can be outside), and that it would likely be panicked. If it got out into our basement, it would a Bad Thing for him and us since it would dramatically decrease the possibility that we'd be able to catch him. He'd probably end up starving to death in some corner a storage shelf, but only after depositing nasty squirrelstuff in as many unreachable places in our basement as possible.
Jeff and I discussed possibilities and discarded two half-built designs. Finally with ingenious use of cardboard, duct tape and a yard waste bag, Jeff created the following:
The plan: When we were ready, Jeff would pull out the filter that separated "A" from "B". With the front of "B" (the electronic air cleaner) removed, the squirrel would run from "A" to "B" then out the front into the Squirrel Catcher Set-up pictured above.
The small piece of white cardboard on the far right was designed to be shoved down after the squirrel left the electronic air cleaner (which we had turned off) to keep him from going back. Once we saw the squirrel run down the homemade cardboard passage (the one under the clear plastic lid) and into the yard waste bag, Jeff would close the top of the bag. We put some sunflower seeds into the bottom of the yard waste bag to make it even more tempting.
At least that was the theory.
When Jeff cautiously pulled open the filter between "A" and "B", however, nothing happened. Silence. We shone a flashlight in and Jeff poked around a bit with a piece of cardboard, but there was no movement and we couldn't see the squirrel.
Had the squirrel escaped? But how?!? There was no other escape route, and it couldn't possibly have climbed back up the duct. Finally Jeff removed the humidifier cover and filter (the beige box at the top of the photo above, connected to the white tube), peered down with a flashlight.
Apparently the squirrel had managed to climb up on a small ledge inside one corner of "A" and had flattened himself against the wall, staying absolutely still, probably hoping that we'd think he had gone. Poor little guy must have been scared to death.
Using an unravelled coat hanger, Jeff gently nudged the squirrel out of his hiding place while I remained poised with the Squirrel Catcher set-up.
Jeff: "He's moving!"
Me: "I'm ready!"
Jeff: "He's on the floor!"
Me: "I see him! HE'S IN!!"
In the end, the set-up worked perfectly. We drove the squirrel to a nearby park and released him. And y'know, he wasn't the huge monstrous bird-killing demon I had originally envisioned. Kinda cute, actually. He looked around in a bit of a daze for a few seconds (who could blame him?) then scampered off into the forest.
As Jeff and I headed back to our house and a cold dinner, we both commented how much smaller the squirrel was than we expected. He looked like a juvenile red squirrel, probably born earlier this year.
Which means, of course, the rest of the family is probably still in our house. We're keeping the Squirrel Catcher set-up handy, just in case.
:-\
(Added later: My naturalist pal Graham Leathers points out that he may have been a small adult squirrel, so perhaps it was the only one. Fingers crossed!)
Saturday, June 17, 2006 at 2:05PM 
