Best Laid Plans

Day 193: "The best laid plans of" Townsend's Chipmunks "and men gang aft a-gley." Forgive me for bastardizing Rabbie Burns, but in this case, it is warranted. You see, yesterday, I discovered that I had not one but two Townsend's Chipmunks, and while one is cute and tolerable (unlike Douglas Squirrels), two is too many. This morning, I set out both Hav-a-Hart traps and baited them with chunks of homemade oatmeal cookie, as close as I could get to a friend's suggestion of "sugary cheap raisin bread." No sooner had I come back in the house than Mr. Townsend's nose picked up the aroma. As I watched from inside, he tried reaching in through the wires at the back of the trap. No, that wasn't going to work. He went around to the side away from me, and although he couldn't reach the cookie, he managed to get a few sunflower seeds for his pains. He got up on top. I went for the camera, hoping to demonstrate the futility of this project on my end, but by the time I returned to the window, Townsend was sitting beside the fence post. "Aha!" I thought. "He's going to go inside!" And he did. And then to my dismay, he started back out again. I captured his exit in this photo, and I figured I'd been outfoxed once again. However, in the time it took me to process the image, he'd gone in again and had tripped the mechanism. Then I checked the other trap which is substantially smaller. To my complete surprise, the second Townsend was secured inside. I'd like to thank my mother for that cookie recipe, but I'm not sure Townsend will share my belated sentiment.