The mission accomplished banner from George W. Bush's Iraq War announcement.

After two years standing guard over my birdfeeder, I retired the Squirrel Soaker 9000 robot yesterday. It accomplished its mission: armed with custom artificial intelligence and a garden hose, the robot successfully deterred squirrels from stealing the birdseed.

a gif of a squirrel at the feeder getting sprayed with water then hopping off the birdfeeder.

Got 'em.

While the squirrels spent months jumping onto the birdfeeder, with both a properly-positioned squirrel baffle and the Squirrel Squirter 9000, over the past year or so, they’ve completely disappeared.

Neither the baffle nor the robot appears to have been successful alone, but the combination of the baffle and the Squirrel Soaker 9000 completely solved my squirrel problem.

Until the squirrels come back (heaven forbid!), I’ve disassembled the bot.

The parts of the disassembled Squirrel Soaker, laid out on the floor..

Until next time.

If I have time, I may try the OWL-ViT zero-shot image classifier to identify squirrels anywhere, from any perspective. That would be an upgrade over the Squirrel Soaker 9000’s custom classifier model that could only detect squirrels on my birdfeeder, photographed from my window. If that works, I could set up the robot elsewhere in the backyard… I might need it.

Because the birds are eating the blueberries.