Squirrel Drama

The first I knew of it, I had a cat standing on top of his covered  catbed, staring out the window.  A squirrel was doing that  "angry chicken with a stuck egg" thing they do when they're mad.
I looked out the window too,  and realized I was eye to eye with a large grey squirrel, and my aren't they large when you are nose to nose with them and only a pane of glass between...

He had somehow been chased up the side of the house and come to ground on the second floor windows, unable to get back down--and the roof overhang made it impossible for him to escape that way.
Charlie, the other cat, was outside, peering up expectantly.  Aha, I thought,  guess who...

I went out, grabbed Charlie, and put him inside.  Tried to entice mr. squirrel down with a board that almost reached the front door lintel.  nope.  He was too high up to risk jumping and while he could charge across the clapboards horizontally he wouldn't risk the steady downward plunge.   Trust is not a given with squirrels, they hate everyone.  Like Markie.

Finally I took a heavy cotton sheet and draped it invitingly out the upstairs window, and left it at that.  The cats are by now galloping from window to window, shouting encouragement.  Probably along the lines of, "jump, you four footed rat, you, JUMP".

And sure enough, after about an hour we heard a scrabbly sound and then a hearty thump, and there was Mr. Squirrel, racing across the lawn to the nearest tree...whether he used the sheet as a faux rope, we shall never know.  I like to think he did.