So I was preparing this to reply:
The neighbor on the other side often puts old food out on his lawn for the urban wildlife around here. (It’s actually illegal to do that here in the city. I think he’s been reprimanded for “ground feeding of animals”.) I’m not sure where the food comes from—possibly things from the food shelf that he doesn’t want or doesn’t know what to do with. A few months ago there were four full heads of cabbage—both green and red—sitting randomly on the ground in his backyard. It looked like he had been bowling or something with the cabbages. Once there was a whole raw turkey (the kind that come frozen, ready to cook) in his yard. I often see food in weird places all over the block. A half-eaten raw potato under our front bushes. A few half-eaten hot dog buns in our backyard. A partially-nibbled tomato lying in someone’s flower garden. A random raw carrot on the sidewalk down the street. The squirrels are enterprising and do their best to carry off the food, but sometimes they are no match for the larger items.
Btw that piece of pizza is still on the roof, but has since slid down about six inches to the next lower tier of shingles. I’d love to know whether the squirrel simply lost its grip on it and then got distracted and ran off, or did it decide that it wasn’t really worth it. Everyone’s got their own favorite style of pizza, after all.
AND RIGHT THEN I noticed that the squirrel had come back and was eating it! (or was it a different, random squirrel that found it and perhaps was jubilant at the discovery?) Then it ran off with what was left.
I had fully expected to watch that piece of pizza sitting on that roof, deteriorating, for the rest of the winter and into spring. Silly me. Never underestimate the appetite of a squirrel.