Earlier this week I was in my home office, minding my own business and working away, when I heard a racket outside my window. At first I thought it was a bird, but then realized it was actually a squirrel barking at something. I looked out but the sun was beaming almost directly at me, and I didn't see him. I have a river birch near my office, and figured from the noise he had to be in it. I also suspect, though I have cut this tree back quite a bit, that this is the "highway" the little bastards are using to get into my attic. As much as it displeases my wife and daughter, I have declared war on the tree rats. I was perfectly content to let them frolic in the back yard unmolested, but as soon as they decided to squat in my attic in the fall through spring each year, the war was on!
Not being able to pinpoint the squirrel, I decided to open up my window, figuring he'd probably tear out of the tree like the devil after a yearling. I opened it up, and he just kept barking - even more so! Then I thought he might actually be stuck, because he wasn't barking at me before, and I couldn't see anything he might be barking at. I finally spotted him, and then grabbed my handy Stoeger X20 "suppressor" .22-caliber pellet rifle. The squirrel was, as my friend puts it, "inside the wire", and he had to go!
Problem was getting a shot at him. The angle stunk and the sun was beaming in at me. I know - excuses, excuses. Anyway, I took a shot and missed, and he ran up the tree a bit, stopped, and continued barking at me!
Fortunately, the angle change helped me - not him. I drilled him between the eyes with the next shot! Instant kill - so instant, he just dropped into the fork of the branch he was peering over! So he's now up in the tree, and still there.
I think I'll leave him there as a warning to his fellow tree-rats. Stay away from my house!!!
Time to add another squirrel sticker onto the stock of the Stoeger - the 8th ones! 
