Please don't feed the squirrels?

A recent Associated Press story reports that the state of Wisconsin is asking visitors to stop feeding squirrels at the state Capitol because children visiting the area may have peanut allergies and this puts them at risk.

Please stop now, say the officials in Madison. Please stop so that schoolkids visiting the state buildings on classroom tours don't have an allergic reaction that could kill them.

Allergies are pretty serious matters. Children and adults can die from such reactions. And the warning is definitely well-intentioned but, I fear, it is off the mark.

First of all, people should indeed stop feeding the squirrels peanuts.

Peanuts are NOT a natural food for squirrels anyway - any more than Cheez-Doodles or Pop Tarts are a "natural" food for humans. Just because a creature likes a snack doesn't mean they need to make a steady diet of it. If people insist on feeding the squirrels, a handful of walnuts will do.

But better still, feed the squirrels something more helpful: a healthy dose of wariness of humans. Why encourage friendliness in wild animals by feeding them? The humans could risk an inadvertent chomp on the hand.

And the squirrels face an even worse fate: they begin to trust humans. Especially near a government building, is this kind of trust a safe thing? These innocent squirrels are milling about in close proximity to politicians.

Picture a state lawmaker luring a squirrel over with a juicy nut, and then handing the poor creature some campaign literature! If squirrels eventually get the vote, no one in Wisconsin will ever be able to unseat their state legislator even if they wanted to! The squirrels would outvote them!

Think about it, folks! Keep squirrels wild, for democracy's sake!

Briefly.....

In Britain, they're known as Y-fronts.

But in one Colorado community, they may as well be called "Y-Not?" fronts. They're squirrel underpants, something we have written about before on this blog, but never quite like this: The undersized undies have been designated as a local public radio station's prize as part of its current fundraising effort. KRCC-FM in Colorado Springs, in fact, hopes the rodent knickers, sold by a West Coast novelty company, will inspire listeners to reach deep down into their own pants.

Well, just as far down as their pockets.

Station staffers were apparently inspired to do this after taking care of a young orphaned squirrel - caretaking chores that, presumably, did not include serving as fashion consultants.

Loyal listeners who sign over more than merely peanuts will have the option of choosing the "squnderwear" or, in the alternate, a pass to the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, a noble cultural institution that, according to its web site, strives "to be a cultural and economic anchor, providing innovative, world-class programming to an ever-expanding audience."

Smart money rides on the skivvies.

Remembering Nero

It could be argued he was never meant to make it, after all. And it could be argued that we were wrong for taking him in and giving him the six additional years he had, especially when, by following the laws of nature, he would likely not have had six more hours on that July day in 2003.

But we rescued the neurologic young adult squirrel from the front lawn in a nearby community after an elderly homeowner, concerned for his safety, trapped him beneath a large flower planter. And we brought "Nero" home, finding him to be gentle and charming. He was also a little loopy, owing likely to some head trauma that knocked him forever off kilter from his course in life.

He never recovered his balance and would always tip over if he got too active but he lived stress-free with us, in the company of other, healthier squirrels who would come and go over the years on their way to freedom. And he looked forward to the times we would come over to his cage offering a nut, a piece of fruit, or one of the nutritional biscuits we often feed the youngsters when they are first weaning off formula.

At night he would tuck himself in tightly - wrapping his T-shirt around him, secure in his nestbox.

He was not in there on the morning of March 31. I found him dead, quite unexpectedly, beneath the ramp of his double-decker hutch. He had already rigored. He had not been visibly ill, though the day before I did note he had a curious, somewhat glazed look in one eye. Perhaps his time was through and that long-ago head trauma caught up with him at last.

It could be argued we should have simply let nature take its course so many years ago when predators were threatening him on that July day, prompting one man's care and concern. Ultimately, nature did run its course, just not that way.

I would like to think we did the right thing.

A flood of emotions

In Fargo, N.D., where rising waters have thrown the community into a mix of fear and chaos, one squirrel lucked out. Plucked from the rushing tide of a river by rescuers who kept their eyes open as well as their hearts, he was quickly warmed up and given a name: Grover.

The people of Fargo have had enough to worry about, surely: losing all they have known and worked for their whole lives. It is both remarkable and heartening that someone cared enough to see this small fellow struggling against the currents, and to act to save him.

The toll in Fargo has been a high one. It is hard to know who else made it alive out of the angry waters, but this one little fellow did. We wish him well.

For Scottish squirrels, a sweetheart deal

I guess you could call it a Sweetheart deal for the Scottish: a new campaign to save the native red squirrels.

Launched on Valentine's Day, and given full backing by the Scottish government, the three-year effort by two conservation groups urges local citizens to assume stewardship (a financial stewardship, in this case) for woodlands, preserving them so they will continue to have habitat, even as they battle a viral infection known as pox, brought to their country by grey squirrels - an introduced species that is, sadly, viewed as a threat.

The two groups are collecting money for a cause close to Scottish citizens' own hearts: Scotland doesn't just want to halt the decline of the reds, but reinvigorate their spread across the nation once more. The campaign takes a positive approach to supporting the reds, a different variety of red squirrel than the ones we have here in the States, and definitely a national treasure.

This is good news for the red squirrel, though it makes me wonder if there can ever be developed a similarly positive, and nonviolent, option for stemming the overtake by the greys, who never asked to cross the Atlantic in the first place.

One can only hope.

Watching "Mr. Squirrel"

Mr. Squirrel
Originally uploaded by HäschenliebeSchweinchen

I am normally not a big fan of surveillance videos, but when it comes to cute squirrels, legal rights to privacy can take second place to squirrel-lovers' rights to see squirrels in action.

That's why this FLICKR video is the right kind of surveillance video. This squirrel isn't trying to rob a bank (or even a bird-feeder for that matter), he (or she) is simply squirreling away goodies for the future. The squirrel is investing, I might add, at a time of global economic crisis. As such, this little FLICKR clip serves as an instructional video for many of us trying to keep breathing while in something of a financial stranglehold.

You'll immediately note the squirrel is aware of being watched - perhaps even of being filmed - and mugs twice for the camera.

Everyone loves having a fan club, and being appreciated.

I expect after this video is viewed far and wide, the folks at CNNMONEYmay invite the squirrel onto one of their financial shows - or to scratch out a BLOG - and school many of us amateurs in the ways of true professionals who know so much more about saving in these trying times.

Wild about junk food

It's official. The world's most famous Junk Food Junkie lives in the United Kingdom.

This notorious nosher, an eastern grey of otherwise normal proportions, has been immortalized via cell phone video - and later in a story in the Milton Keynes Citizen, gorging on cajun-flavored crisp delicacies, known as Walkers Crisps. The scene of the alleged crime: the back yard of local wildlife fan, resident Camilla Cullum.

Cullum caught the critter, crisp-handed in the act. The video and the photos went on the web and then went viral - globe-trotting via the Internet until the junk food junkie developed a following of fans as far away as India and the U.S.

Sadly, PepsiCo, the maker of Walkers Crisps, is not among the fan base. The newspaper made the images available to the company but they apparently did not seem nuts about the idea. Nor did they even give the notion a crisp reply.

Putting squirrels on the map

Great Britain is having a hard time keeping its native, beloved red squirrels on the map, and unfortunately its assault continues unabated with the red's presumed assailant, the Eastern Grey Squirrel. Greys are an introduced (and non-native species) from across the Pond. This rather sorry conflict created all sorts of sadness and grief on both sides of the controversy.

But BBC home editor Mark Easton has found some happy middle ground. He recently posted on his blog at the BBC News web site, a way to keep the Eurasian Red Squirrel, personified by Beatrix Potter's saucy little Squirrel Nutkin, on the map. In this case it's a map of their native land, reflecting the change in their population, migration and growth.

It's pretty amazing stuff, because the same map can be used to chart the biodiversity of the whole United Kingdom, everything from scurius vulgaris (the red squirrel) to the growth patterns of native fungi. The makers of this map have crunched all sorts of data from a variety of sources, including the Save Our Squirrels effort, which is at the forefront of conserving the native reds.

Crunching data is a good thing - especially with respect to nut-crunching squirrels. The effort is admirable.

Now perhaps there should be another map - showing anti-grey squirrel factions and pro-grey factions - and a way to get everyone together to nonviolently solve the issue.

Don't mess with the groundhog

To all of you who scoffed at Punxsutawney Phil's prediction of six more weeks of winter, pay heed to the winter storm that is quickly consuming the East Coast of the United States.

Don't mess with the groundhog!

Phil meant no harm with his February prognostication, he was only doing his job, and as the King of Forecasting Squirrels, this rodent is all pro. Indeed, there are many meteorologists out there who owe him their lives, if not their livelihoods too.

Don't mess with the groundhog.

Folks can throw their Phil Wanna-be woodchucks in front of the TV cameras and vow they're just as accurate as the Big Kahuna of Weathercasting but, in the end, the skies, the clouds and the barometric pressure issue the ultimate final judgment, and that decree says:

Don't mess with the groundhog.

It's going to be a splendid storm, folks, and I plan to enjoy it, to wake up and face the pristine snow where only bird footprints and squirrel footprints leave a tale to tell, like punctuation marks printed neatly across a clean white canvas.

As for me, I wouldn't dream of messing with the groundhog. Besides, he's back in his burrow sleeping for the next couple of weeks or so while we humans grumble about our fate: Into every life a little (or a whole lot) of snow must fall. Just ask the groundhog.

One Texan's housing crisis

In today's edition of the Dallas Morning News, gardening columnist Mariana Greene has transformed herself into a kind of real estate writer: She greets the image of squirrels living in outdoor nesting boxes with the same kind of welcome that the rest of us suburbanites and urbanites usually dole out to freshly built neighborhood McMansions.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/fea/columnists/mgreene/stories/DN-nhg_fool_0219gd.ART.State.Edition1.4aa6eca.html

In her backyard box, she would rather have a screech owl, she writes, because they provide a natural containment for her property's rat problems, owing to the predator-prey relationship between the two.

So when a squirrel moved in instead, it was as strong a case of NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) as one might see at a town hall public hearing when a developer proposes a big box superstore where a Little League field had once been. (Not only was this a common rodent but a somewhat corpulent one, making a strong case for a potential lawsuit based on Species Discrimination and Fat Discrimination.)

Do squirrels make bad neighbors? Other than the occasional tomato-plant thievery (so what? Plant a little extra and solve the problem), other than the more-than-occasional bird-feeder raiding (so what, again? Add a second or third feeder, or a platform feeder and enjoy the acrobatics), why fight nature? Unlike the guy next door whose teenaged kids hold pool parties, a squirrel won't blare his stereo until all hours or allow other squirrels' cars to block your driveway when they come to visit. The squirrels' kids also are off and on their own after 14 weeks - not 18 years (or longer). Best of all, if you are lucky enough, the squirrels will bury seeds and nuts that, in years to come, might just save you the cost of hiring a landscaper to do some plantings.

With apologies to Robert Frost who, I presume and hope, was a squirrel lover too, the bottom line is this: Good squirrels make good neighbors.

Big squirrels on campus

I thought the Giant Squirrels of Borneo were big - and capable of big news - until I saw this article, which appears in the student newspaper, The Daily Pennsylvanian:

Coming soon to Locust: big squirrels - News

The university's Art Club will be placing almost two dozen larger-than-life statues of these ubiquitous rodents around the campus, encouraging people to sponsor and, ultimately, decorate them.

The sculptures are a fundraising effort to benefit various campus activities.

Now what eastern gray (or even southern flyer) could take issue with that?

To anyone who thinks squirrels are only good for taking handouts, or hanging out around a bunch of nuts, take notice: These Big Squirrels on Campus are capable of great things!

The doctor, the squirrel - and the hawk

Warning: This is controversial. No matter whose side you're on, this is going to be very controversial:

A surgeon in Vienna, Va., was recently arrested and charged with firing his gun in public - and with cruelty to animals. He fatally shot a hawk in the backyard of his home after he saw it eyeing a young squirrel, one that he and his wife had nurtured after it had been orphaned. The same bird of prey, apparently, had previously caught and killed an adult squirrel in the couple's yard. When the doctor saw the bird return and track the younger squirrel, he tried to chase it off using other means - none of which involved firearms - and then, when those attempts failed, he got his shotgun.

Was he right to fire his weapon in a residential neighborhood? The law clearly establishes he wasn't, and deems this a crime.

Was he right to protect the little squirrel as he did? Another law - in this case, the law of nature -establishes just as clearly that he also wasn't. The doctor's intervention unhooked one of the links in the food chain and disrupted the natural order of predation.

Is it criminal to want to save a life? This is what doctors do for a living, after all, with their human patients. In this case, the doctor had cared for the small helpless squirrel, raised and released him and, when he again fell helpless against the talons of the hawk, the doctor again intervened.

But is it wrong to take a life to save one? Likely there are many who would argue that the predation should have proceeded, uninterrupted. Likely there are others reading this (and at least one person writing this) who wouldn't think twice before doing the same thing.

There are no easy answers.

Stumping in Washington for "Stumpy"

The elections are long over, as is the presidential inauguration, but there is still some unfinished business in one corner of Washington, D.C.: Stumpy the squirrel wants his peanuts. And he wants them NOW.

Stumpy - whose name was inspired by the remaining fragments of his tail - navigates a busy part of Northwest Washington, near the studios of Federal News Radio, where my friend Max works, covering the news. His latest headline report to me - which came accompanied by the photo posted here - was about Stumpy. This was indeed BIG NEWS: Amy, the executive editor at the radio station, had first spied Stumpy near a Dumpster and immediately took pity on his taillessness which she presumed was a flag of his fragility.

Her impression was tossed the next day when she saw Stumpy take on a dog (who was leashed, thank goodness), the squirrel defending his turf with chatters and whatever flicks he could muster from his diminished hind end.

She soon found he had captured her heart - and later, some peanuts she began to leave out for him on a regular basis. That was last autumn, just as the election was foremost on minds in that most political of U.S. cities - and elsewhere.

Stumpy is still in office, so to speak: He makes his rounds outside Amy's first floor office window and Max, ever the intrepid reporter, pressed his cell phone's camera into duty to capture the official portrait you see here.

He took no oath of office, of course - but probably chatters a few good ones, nonetheless, at the occasional passing dog.

Six more weeks of ....

Judging from what's fallen outside our door this morning, Punxsutawney Phil also has a great career ahead of him picking winning Lottery numbers.

But we've gotten more than a mere flurry of flakes - we have a storm of more footprints than I can count: Little exclamation points dotting the path, punctuation marks that serve to complete this sentence: "FEED ME, YOU FOOLS!"

And so, we obey. Happily. Yes, master.

A groundhog does what a groundhog does, and likewise the eastern gray.

Punxsy Phil has predicted six more weeks of ravenous squirrels.

No complaints here.

Well-grounded and hogging ground

How much winter would a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck winter?

Six more weeks - maybe. That's what the nation's Top Chuck told us last year, when we chronicled the frosty predictions of Punxsutawney Phil in this blog.

It's that time again. And in a few short hours, we'll once again be putting our faith in a furball instead of a crystal one.

Rodent prognostication isn't limited to Phil and his fellow groundhogs, though. If only we had watched the way squirrels were hoarding their stash earlier this year, we could have known what was going on in the economy, followed their lead, and averted the need for all those bailouts. If anyone had seen the local chipmunks slip away into sleep a little bit earlier this year, they could have figured out that the winter temps would come on fast and furious.

Instead of paying money to psychics, reading our horoscopes in the paper (or online), or simply wishing on a star, we should go outside and feed the squirrels - and then watch them with an interpretive eye. These creatures know a whole lot more than they're letting on.

Meanwhile, the squirrel community has not yet weighed in on the Oscars, the Grammy Awards or even the outcome, later this year, of the U.S. Open. And not one has handed me a winning set of Lottery numbers in exchange for the small fortune I've spent on nuts.

Prognostication, after all, has its limits.

No squirrels in this end zone

A certain team will be missing this year from the big contest in Tampa Bay between football's Steelers and Cardinals: The Eastern Grays.


Nowhere in the noble list of big game sponsors is there a company who, this year, enlisted the help of these agile, photogenic, crowd-pleasing rodents to help showcase their products and services.


Are they nuts? (Apparently not, because a nut company would have chosen the obvious spokesrodent.)


Gone is the genital-chomping squirrel who assailed a dentist in the Trident chewing gum commercial of yore, the screaming, and (fortunately) tire-eluding fellow in the Bridgestone ad, and of course the unforgettable "Running of the Squirrels" high drama staged in Cecil B. DeMille-like fashion for a very forgettable company called EDS.


Are squirrels experiencing layoffs too? In this season when their cousins the chipmunks and the groundhogs are nestled in sweet hibernation, should the eastern gray perhaps rethink the addition of a similar midwinter's snooze too? Granted, that means they would miss the playoffs and Superbowl, even as spectators, but that would open up whole new career possibilities for them in sports advertising once baseball's spring training season is through.

Provided, that is, Major League Baseball can somehow keep them from gnawing at the teams' bats.

Nothing lost in translation

Do squirrels speak Spanish?
Or, perhaps more importantly, do the people of Colombia, South America, speak Squirrel?
The answer, most assuredly, is "Si."
During a monthlong visit to that country, my friends Rich and Luis traveled, visited Luis' family, and took pictures of everything - squirrels included. Apparently, the South American nation that practically deifies the humble java bean also apparently gives an admiring nod to the bushytailed denizens of their trees.
Squirrels get their name, or at least their profile, in lights during the Christmas season, and Rich was thoughtful enough to capture this image of a Christmas squirrel before the glowing rodent clambered up a holiday lightpole where, no doubt, he was building a nest made entirely of incandescent lights and LEDs strung together.

Then, on a visit to a place outside Medellin, they found a restaurant known as Pescadero Trucha Arco Iris (or "fishing place" for a type of rainbow fish) which was furnished with tables and chairs hand-painted by local artists. The chair pictured here would obviously be a place of honor for the squirrel-lovers among us. (It's not clear, however, whether that would obligate one to order something from the menu featuring acorns, nuts or berries.)

Squirrel decor, both indoor and out, can be downright chic. Imagine if the modern furniture designers, Charles and Ray Eames, had been rhapsodic over rodentia. Imagine if the evolving designs of Frank Lloyd Wright had gone through a "Chipmunk Phase."
It is encouraging to think that while some people view squirrels as pests, annoyances and even vermin, others see them as inspiration.
No matter what you call them - and in whatever language you speak their name - they can leave an image buried in your imagination long after you have seen one scamper across your path.
But then, they're good at burying things, aren't they?

He's inclined toward progress

Mr. Tilty is doing fine. This should set the record straight for anyone who has been worried about him (and that includes me).

He was seen out and about during the last snowfall a few days ago and today, I am happy to report, he was back atop his regular nestbox. Weaker squirrels often get picked on and I'd feared he might have been evicted. But no, he has not been thrown out by some cruel rodent landlord or by a contentious roommate wanting to crack nuts privately, late into the night; rather, Mr. Tilty has been sharing his living quarters, as squirrels - even warring ones - often do in the winter because friendship is the greatest warmth that acorns can buy when the temps drop to single digits.

I admire him for the one habit he has displayed, which I find particularly endearing - sitting atop his nestbox, even in these frigid temps, basking in the sun. He takes it all in, crooked angle notwithstanding. Sitting up there, he is full-bodied and apparently happy, his nose sticking almost straight up in the air.

Tilted or not, he seems to be sitting on top of the world.

News on Squirrel Appreciation Day

I wish squirrels read newspapers.
I wish they at least subscribed to them.
Sometimes I even wish they worked for them. Then again, it is entirely possible they already do, judging from the squirrelcentric content of some major papers in the last two or three weeks:

USA Today, the Washington-based paper, reported earlier this month on a far-reaching shortage of acorns from some of the nation's oaks. It was done with respect and with input from scientists, biologists and others who are concerned not just with the botanical consequences but the "squirrical" ones. The story showed a good bit of research, balance and respect on the part of the author who, I suspect, could have had a bushy tail and some formidable incisors. One never knows.

And earlier this week, the venerable New York Times included yet another squirrel-related item in its popular, chatty Metropolitan Diary column: This one about a squirrel whose carefully plotted acorn-hoarding tactics over the years have charmed the doorman of a building near one of the city's parks. I love this one in particular because the survival of urban squirrels is a particular concern of mine, but this one clearly has his game all mapped out. I suspect the reader who submitted this item to the Metropolitan Diary might possibly have been a squirrel, admiring this guy from afar, in an adjacent tree.

Today is Squirrel Appreciation Day - a festival that has the unfortunate acronym of S.A.D., but it is anything BUT. Squirrels have been in the news on a regular basis and it is clear that the Fourth Estate believes in total coverage in black and white (if not also grey and, at times, red and even albino.)

In that respect, it might well be Newspaper Appreciation Day too.

Tilting toward trouble?

Meet "Mr. Tilty."

I first wrote about him in November. We realized then he has not just been a welcome resident in our yard, but he was making his home in a wooden nestbox high in our tall sycamore. We love him for many reasons. He is a symbol of courage and also of determination, living out a difficult winter with varying degrees of disability.

At times he runs and moves in a troublesome fashion, seeing the world at an angle because he lists to one side, like a slowly sinking ship.

In these photos, taken a week and a half ago, that tilt was not so evident. But today, when we saw him, the slight tipping had become a toppling. Once or twice he lost his balance altogether and was lying in the snow, however briefly. He also has an injury to one digit on the left front paw, which appears to be healing - but it is the tilting that is of concern to us now. He can run, he can climb and he can gather food.

But we are worried.

Wish him well. We are monitoring his progress, and his decline, if it continues.

If he cannot continue to make his way in the world and needs us to step in and help him, I hope he will let us. This is a tough winter for everyone - especially Mr. Tilty.

Feeding the squirrels, or feeding ON them?

The subject just won't go away.

A new New York Times story reports once again on a resurgence in the British proposal to eradicate grey squirrels - the acknowledged nemesis of the native reds - by eating them. This notion has been circulating for quite some time, has given butcher shops in the UK a renewed entrepreneurial spirit, and has challenged chefs who possess a desire to appear both creative and patriotic.

What a world. Imagine if we all sought, similarly, to conquer our various enemies by eating them.

Labor union leaders would publish cookbooks containing varieties of souffles one might whip up using recalcitrant CEOs and vicious vice presidents as the main ingredients.

Assembly line workers would hold morale-raising barbecues, with the sole purpose of skewering, marinating and roasting the shop foremen.

The stomach, formerly known only as an organ of sustenance for the body, would now become a sociopolitical battleground. Who could have predicted such a fate for this simple part of our anatomy?

Squirrels of Britain beware: The hand that feeds you all those nuts so lovingly and generously today may simply be seeking to fatten you up for tomorrow - for supper.

Ice is nice

Cupid isn't shooting arrows this year - it's icicles that the little urchin has poised in his bow. But his marksmanship remains uncompromised.

By July of this year, the gossip mills will be churning over Hollywood's most wonderful prehistoric romance - Scrat, the dinosaur-era squirrel who starred in the first two "Ice Age" movies finds true love (or at least pursues it with the same passion accorded his acorns). The animated action movie, "Dawn of the Dinosaurs," will shoot out of the studios with firecracker abandon, just in time for Independence Day, July 4.

Given the company he has been keeping in the previous flicks, from the full-bodied brontosaurus to the tree-top-tall T-rex, this forebear of today's rodents deserves a bit of smooching too, don't you think? Squirrel Does Not Live By Walnuts Alone.

I can't wait to see the fireworks.

Happy Gnaw Year, 2009!

The giant acorn has dropped in Times Square, teeth are chattering, tails are flicking and feet are stomping! That makes 2009 a whole Gnaw Year for squirrels (and the rest of us).

Here are a few resolutions you aren't likely to see squirrels making anytime soon:

1. To let the birds have the best of the pickings at the feeder.
2. To enroll in carpentry school so as to replace, in a workmanlike fashion, any and all wooden parts of decks, roofs, doors and siding that mysteriously got chewed beyond recognition.
3. To never aim for anyone's head when dropping tree nuts, acorns or other large objects (including corncobs), and to apologize profusely if a moving target is hit anyway.
4. To replace any and all expensive, imported and heirloom plantings such as tulip, daffodil and other bulbs that provide a sumptuous buffet al fresco lunch.
5. To be less cute, less disarming, less clever and less endearing and to immediately cease and desist in the brazen stealing of our hearts.

As a species, squirrels have had tens of millions of New Year's Eves and New Year's Days.

Resolutions, like nut shells, were made to be broken.

A backhanded compliment to squirrels?

From today's Bradenton, Florida newspaper - a publication known as the Bradenton Herald - comes this kernel of attempted wisdom, reflecting back on the old year and (pun intended) Heralding the arrival of the new year, 2009.

The author writes:

To be sure, much is unknown about what the coming year will bring.
As myriad economic disasters, yet unseen, unfurl from Wall Street to Washington, to the checkout lane at the local grocery store, caution is in order. So gather ye nuts while ye may: Count your blessings, take good care of those around you, and remember the wisdom of the lowly squirrel as you bid farewell to 2008.

Accompanying this short essay is a rather charming photograph of an aforementioned "lowly" squirrel. Funny but he doesn't look "lowly" to me. He looks downright cute and appealing as he stands on his hind legs, obviously interrupted in the rather sensible act of seasonal nut-gathering.

He's doing the right thing: He's not putting his nuts into a tumbling real-estate market, nor is he investing his acorn in hedge funds (or any other kind of financial shrubbery, hedges or otherwise.) He is not trading them for losing lottery tickets nor placing bets in the trifecta at the Squirrel Derby. He is not engaging other squirrels in pyramid schemes, nor is he buying other nuts on margin, or doing seriously heavy day-trading that might, in this climate, bankrupt the whole forest.

For this he is complimented of course, but the essayist has nonetheless deemed him "lowly." Odd how an animal who can dance in the treetops when the rest of us need ladders to make our wobbly, precarious way there is deemed lowly. Odd how his investments (the acorns) will obviously grow when many of our own human investments are being cut down by the economic axe day by day.

If this is what lowly means, find me an empty branch in the nearest oak tree and pass the acorns, please.

Squirrel philosophy

I've begun wishing people a Happy New Year already, even with the turn of the calender still a few days away. This has never been my favorite holiday and, for the most part, that humbug attitude has been a well-kept secret. I love December, with all its well-lit glory and pageantry and I dread January because it ends the festive season and begins the long haul of another year, all over again.

Today someone returned my well-intentioned wishes with that very sentiment - as clear as if I'd spoken it myself. "I don't know how I feel about the new year, since it means so much time has already passed," she said, "but what is the alternative?"

True. And I confessed to her I was feeling the very same thing. Suddenly the prospect of a new year didn't seem even remotely happy. Then I came home to watch the squirrels frantically burying nuts on our property - and then digging them up and reburying them elsewhere - and I started to reconsider my position.

Squirrels don't know it is December. And they don't know January is coming. They only know they have today and, even during the course of this day, they plan for tomorrow. They bury nuts because of deep instinct that tells them to hope and to plan. Worry, fear and anxiety has no place on their agenda, it is counterproductive and, frankly, foreign to the squirrels' gameplan. And so December's nuts are the same as January's nuts and the burying goes forward with each waking hour, and it goes forward with the same industrious ethic in the morning as it does at dusk.

And so this is how squirrels make for their own happy new year without even knowing that this is what they are in fact doing. It is what all squirrels have been doing since the beginning of time, since new years first came into being (and perhaps since before we humans came on the scene).

I think I will bury my old bad attitude with the intention of NOT digging it up again in 2009, and concentrate instead on cacheing away the very best of attitude and hope that I can for the challenges in the year ahead.

Happy New Year, squirrels!

Miracle or mishap?

Years from now, no doubt, students at the Meoncross School in the UK will still be talking about the purple squirrel.

So will their teachers.

What appears, in every other way, to be an eastern grey squirrel, has become a semi-regular at the school, and may likely even have a better attendance record than many of the pupils enrolled there. "Pete," as he has been named, showed up during one of the lessons, outside a window, and immediately stole the show from teachers with his bright purple fur.

Purple squirrels, in human-resources parlance, simply do not exist. HR professionals refer to the ideal job candidate as being a "purple squirrel" because they perfectly fit every description of the job being advertised. And as most job-seekers will tell you, that just doesn't happen in the real world. Talents abound everywhere, but no one has it all!

And now, here is Pete, perfectly fitting the description of a squirrel who has miraculously become a Rodent of a Different Color, charming faculty and students alike and, of course, distracting everyone from their lessons.

It's possible he got into some toner, chewed on a bottle of ink or.....fell into some paint. It's possible there is a reasonable explanation for this, and hopefully, for Pete's Sake, not a toxic one.

Or he could be a miracle. Do people still believe in those?

The answer will come during the spring moulting season. Stay tuned, as the fur begins to fly.

A different holiday for squirrels

We're just a few short days away from Christmas but in squirreldom, traditional yuletide greetings take a back seat to mating calls.

Happy Valentine's Day, rodents!

Squirrels are exchanging holiday gifts of a sort right now in the treetops (and on the ground.....and on our deck and anywhere else they can do it), and this passionate mutual generosity doesn't yield any real results for another 45 to 48 days. That's the gestation period, roughly, for the Eastern Gray Squirrel. Beginning sometime in late January or early February and lasting into early spring, the gift wrap will be off and the gift - litters of newborn squirrels - will be revealed.

So forget about leaving out milk and cookies for Santa this year.
Toss out a few choice walnuts for the squirrels instead. They're going to be very busy in the weeks ahead and they'll need the extra energy.

On campus, a study of erratic squirrel behavior

The Hawk, a publication serving students on the campus of St. Josephs' University in Philadelphia, has published this story about squirrels behaving oddly (at least to human eyes) on their campus.

Campus squirrels gone nuts? - Features

The authors of the article quote experts who posit various reasons for the acorn-dropping dude and the trash-can athlete - and some of these reasons are academic - entirely appropriate, I might add, to the campus environment. Who better than a biologist, for instance, could assess squirrels' seemingly misanthropic activities? (And also to point out that squirrels are not an attack species, and will NOT go on the offensive without sufficient real provocation.)

What better environment than a university, an oasis of learning, in which to spin such theories, right?

But has everyone here forgotten that, on many campuses, it is also Finals Week and squirrels, too, must cram for the ultimate exams that will determine their G.P.A. for the semester? (Gray Point Average). Squirrels are cramming mightily at this time of year: Cramming acorns, cramming nuts, cramming leaves, cramming corncobs, cramming whatever they can. Winter is the ultimate final exam and during Finals Week, even squirrels get a wee bit nervous.

So forgive them their transgressions. They're still learning too.

Underwear...under WHERE?

First comes the bad news that pretty much shook up the Squirrel Economy.


There is, apparently, an acorn shortage here in the U.S., stretching from the state of Virginia to points south. Trees just didn't seem to have produced sufficiently this year for the squirrel population and news accounts are reporting how wildlife advocates have been encouraging people to supplement nuts and other food where they can. This is important. Because without nuts or acorns, of course, squirrel unemployment rises rapidly - with nothing to bury, our country is besieged by increasing numbers of out-of-work squirrels.

So while we humans have it bad on Wall Street, squirrels are taking a dive on Acorn Lane.

Then, suddenly, comes a burst of good news: Squirrels, even those that are acorn-challenged, needn't suffer nakedness any longer. Squirrel underwear - known in the United Kingdom as Y-fronts - is now available!

Let the good news be shouted from the acorn-less treetops! Perhaps the availability of a comfortable cotton garment, just as winter starts to clench its icy grip, will be of some comfort during these trying times.

Indeed, perhaps we humans, struggling with a tragically faltering global economy, might also seek comfort in nice, new comfy cotton underwear. Wouldn't it be nice if that's all it took in this world?

It would certainly provide some warmth where it counts most.

Home for the holidays

He is a fat squirrel, but that's nothing new for our yard.

He is also "the tilted squirrel," which is what we call him when we see him - which is quite often - because he is the only one who walks in a kind of sideways fashion, with his head pressing up against an imaginary wall.

His balance is fine, however, and he can scrap with the best and the rest of them when it comes to claiming our tossed pecans and almonds as his own. He runs, he buries, he chatters and he is as able-bodied as he can be under the circumstances. I admire his grace and his spirit.

So it was particularly gratifying to discover, on Thanksgiving Day, where he is living: He has made his home nest in the tallest tree in our yard, the sycamore tree, which hosts one of several wooden nestboxes we have installed on our property. I have seen him sitting atop it, sunning himself, at times, and once or twice have spied his face peering out in inclement weather, as if he were waiting for the green light from some unseen squirrel meteorologist.

I love that he is there, that he has a home, and that he does not have to go far (except to the base of the tree and, of course, our deck) to get what he needs in life. We will happily provide for him during this tough season when "plenty" is hard to come by.

The Tilted Squirrel is home for the holidays - and the home in this case happens to be our home.

What a privilege that is.

It's criminal that this is criminal!

Caught grey-handed!

A Canadian friend of wildlife, visiting an upscale city park in Montreal, has been fined for feeding squirrels. Bruce Kert is now a marked man, according to this story in the Westmount Examiner. He is branded a criminal for having consorted in a culinary fashion with rodents.

The city, you see, has Zero Tolerance for such nefarious activity. He brazenly brandished peanuts - or so the charges claim - and willfully fed the aforementioned urban vermin. Cuteness factor notwithstanding, he is charged with doing a bad, bad thing.

Presumably the city could probably make good use of the $455 worth of fines levied against in the insouciant Kert. (It's not likely they'll spend it on food for wildlife or even to cover the municipal vet bill, should one exist at all).

Presumably Kert may become sufficiently traumatized by this to subsequently develop a peanut allergy. He fed only two peanuts, according to the city, but at roughly $227 per nut, that isn't exactly.....uh, peanuts.

"It's not like I make a habit of it," the story quotes Kert as saying in his defense.

It's not likely he'll ever do it again, either. Squirrels, you see, are considered a nuisance.

Public Security Officers who stop and issue tickets to people enjoying the municipal park, however, are not.

What's wrong with this picture?

It's nuts.

Leaving their mark

There is a small scar on the left side of my upper lip that I've had for the past year and a half. It's not something to laugh at but I suppose the way I got it is somewhat comical, mainly because it's the worst injury I sustained in an incident that could have ended more seriously.

I was rushing to the back door to hand a nut to a squirrel who was standing there, staring in.

Let me repeat that: I was rushing to the back door to feed a squirrel.

And I do mean rushing. Rushing so fast and so carelessly that I hooked my leg on the leg of our dining room table and went crashing down, face first, on our ceramic tile floor. I did not even have time to try to break my fall with either of my arms - and perhaps that is a good thing. I at least must have turned my head to the right, somehow doing the right thing, before I hit the floor which soon became splattered with blood, as if a crime scene had occurred.

Yes, even with a Jackson Pollock style outpouring of vital fluids on our beautiful tile, I continued to crawl to the door, nut in hand, and yes, I fed the squirrel (who, by the way, was still waiting there, quite unsympathetically.)

Crazy? Perhaps. But nothing more horrible had happened - and after a trip to the ER to get my seriously split lip stitched back together by a plastic surgeon, I was on my way.

That squirrel, by the way, had been a personal favorite of mine for two years at least. He was a sassy male, a very in-your-face kind of guy, and when he migrated to another territory three months later, I missed him terribly.

I still do.

These animals come and go in all our lives, don't they? When I see the scar on my lip, I think of him. But most of the marks they have left on my life are less visible (I'm grateful for that).

But they are there. Most definitely, they do remain.

A classless act

Shame on the BBC. And shame on their wildlife show, "Autumnwatch," for broadcasting images of the corpse of a squirrel that had been electrocuted outside the garden shed of Bill Oddie, the show's presenter. The squirrel died after gnawing on electrical wire outside Oddie's North London home.

Yes, this stuff happens. Squirrels gnaw, they get electrocuted, they die horrible deaths. The newspapers are filled with stories about how towns, parts of cities, and other jurisdictions lose power because of squirrels gnawing electrical lines. A squirrel once shut down part of the New York Stock Exchange this way. A squirrel once shut down part of the massive Metro North train system, between Manhattan and Westchester County, in just this way.

And yes, in each case, the squirrel died.

The image would have been disturbing enough but Oddie could not leave well enough alone. He then is quoted as saying to viewers: ‘Better red than dead . . . or grey.’ He subsequently added: ‘Let all squirrels watching be warned, because you can get too cocky.’

I suppose he fancies himself a wit, having said all that. I suppose he thinks he is terribly clever.

I hope the BBC takes a good hard look at him and his show - which is immensely popular among TV viewers in the UK. Any host of a show who can take delight in, or see something amusing, in this kind of death - in ANY kind of unnecessary death of an animal - might need to have his appropriateness (or lack thereof) re-evaluated.

I hope the BBC pulls the plug on Oddie. No doubt he would still feel some kind of shock - but fear not, Oddie fans, it will only stun him a wee bit.

3 squirrels, 3 wishes

It turned dark around 5 p.m. today and a light rain had already begun to fall, growing more steady with the minutes.

They're out there now, and survival is up to them.

Three little sisters, young orphaned squirrels, who were brought to us in September, have grown so increasingly wild over time I knew it would be unwise to try and overwinter them. We weren't just racing the clock now but the seasons: today was the day they had to be set free.

Ideally you want a day with moderate temperatures, which we had, but a forecast of dry weather is usually best. We released early - got them into the woods by 9 a.m. - because anything less than 7 or 8 hours of daylight for nest-building and checking out the surroundings is simply not sufficient.

Last night they were warm in a nestbox and they could have been kept safe forever, if only I had the time and the space, and if only they were not the wild creatures that nature intended them to be.

So we went forward into the woods this morning together, and their departure was swift and joyful. My wishes for them, then, are for a swift acclimation to their new and natural home, a joyful existence there, and all the safety that nature and their own wits can grant them.

Double the luck

The good news out of Texas, as reported by the Dallas Morning News, is that the University of North Texas is doubly blessed this week. Since 2002 the campus has been graced by at least one albino squirrel, a fact of life the students take as seriously as their final exams.

But this week they discovered a second one - perhaps an offspring of the first? And campus denizens couldn't be any happier as if the football team had scored a shutout in the homecoming game.

No, for sure, this kind of event is an even more joyous one because, in the paws of a rare squirrel such as these two, every single acorn is guaranteed to score a touchdown!

Here's the story:

For the first time in the history of the University of North Texas, two albino squirrels have taken residence near the intersection of Avenue A and Eagle Drive.
UNT faculty and students alike have honored the albino squirrel since the first was discovered on campus in 2002. Some students believe they will receive a passing grade if they see one of the white creatures on their way to a midterm or final exam.
It’s unusual for UNT to have two albino squirrels together, said Melody Kelly, associate dean of the UNT Libraries and an albino squirrel enthusiast.
The discovery of Baby’s Baby and his unnamed white-haired juvenile friend was confirmed earlier this month when the two were photographed by K.T. Shiue, a computer support specialist and webmaster at the university.
The university is taking suggestions for the new squirrel’s name

What's the big idea, Squirrel?

I confess. I love the Dilbert comic strip. Everything about it, from Dilbert himself to Ratbert and all the other little creatures that show the sad but funny truth behind modern corporate existence.

Today's strip, however, gets a bit squirrelly. The Idea Squirrel shows his furry head, and Scott Adams, the strip's creator, demonizes the Idea Squirrel as a villain:

The Idea Squirrel, he notes, steals your ideas and makes you feel like a nut for claiming the idea as your own.

Ah but Mr. Adams, squirrels have enough ingenious ideas. They don't need to be stealing a thing from us humans except, of course, the nuts we spend our hard-earned money on so we can then toss them at the squirrels in our yard and smugly think this is all OUR idea.

Of course it's not - not by a long-shot. The squirrels have simply manipulated us into thinking the idea was ours.

Differences of opinion aside, Mr. Adams, let me commend you on a gently funny strip anyway. It was, I must say, one of the best ideas I've seen lately.

Only one question: What squirrel did you steal it from?

What animals don't ask of us

1. They don't ask us to name them.
2. They don't ask us to worry about them.
3. They don't ask us to feed them.
4. They don't ask us to miss them.
5. They don't ask us to grieve when they die.
6. They don't ask us to bury them.
7. They don't ask for memorial markers to be installed at the burial spot.

A lot of us do this anyway, for our wild friends as well as our domestic ones.

I don't believe in fairy tales, I don't believe in the so-called "Rainbow Bridge," nor do I believe that we comprise - at least for wild animals - anything but entirely optional encounters in their lives. And I do believe that we the humans are the fortunate ones when our paths cross with theirs, however, if only for brief moments.

One of my favorite poems is "The Heaven of Animals" by James Dickey. It is realistic and it is true for me, except for the part about animals having no souls. I believe, far from being soulless, they are the essence of soul on this planet. When I read that poem, as I often do, I drop the words "no souls" and add "fine souls."

It works for me.

Sometimes they just die

There isn't much to say, or much to write just yet, except to report that one of my most favorite and cared for outdoor squirrels, a wild female who has been coming since the spring, is dead. I will miss her more than I can even convey here.

The arrival of "Snaggletooth," as we had come to call her, was chronicled in this blog because of our concern for the incisor growing directly out of the front of her face. We worried that this would cause her to starve at some point, or develop into an infection that might compromise her health. We thought we would have to trap her and get the incisor clipped - temporary remedy at best, since incisors are ever-growing.

Fortunately that never had to be an option. She came regularly, at least since April, raised a spring litter and an autumn litter (as evidenced by her teats), and was able to crack and eat nuts. She went about her business, scrapped with the toughest and the biggest of the squirrels for her rightful place at the front of the nut line - both at our front door and back door - as recently as two days ago. I watched for her every day, often making myself late for work until she showed up past her customary time. I sometimes rearranged my day so I could be here at her customary visiting times, just because she was such a delight - and always met my gaze directly with hers.

Less than an hour ago, our landscaper found her dead in the yard of the neighbor across the street. There was no mistaking who this was. There is not a mark on her body. No animal attack evident, no trauma, no fatal injury by car. It is as if she just closed her eyes, and that was that. She was, to all appearances, a healthy, full grown adult with what was obviously a minor inconvenience: her incisor which, as it turns out, was more of a problem for us than for her.

With animals, as with people, sometimes they just die. Sometimes they just die.

The 700 billion acorn bailout

Imagine if the economy got so bad that even squirrels needed government assistance.

Imagine if the projected value of their acorn portfolios far exceeded the market value of their tree harvests and they began planning and borrowing against this inflated value. And imagine that it spiraled upward and threatened to undo the basis of their woodland economy.

Then suddenly the acorn market - like a huge limb in a major storm - came crashing down! Who would bail out the squirrels and provide them with stability against a Rodent Recession?

In this Election Year, I sincerely doubt that any of our nation's candidates for office, or for that matter any incumbent lawmakers, have considered the possibility of such a scenario.

And fortunately, they needn't. There is really no need to worry because squirrels only save what they can gather, and only spend what they have. It's simple economics, really.

I'd like to give the squirrels credit for setting this wonderful example for us financially floundering humans, particularly those here in the U.S. who are finding the economic situation a particularly tough nut to crack.

I'd like to give the squirrels credit for moving forward through this economic crisis and continuing to gather their acorn harvest, assembling a balanced portfolio of oak, walnut, chestnut and the like, for the long winter ahead.

I'd like to give the squirrels credit - but these squirrels don't need credit, or credit cards, and would likely refuse the offer of credit because their acorns are like money in the bank. A hard stash of hard cash, not federally insured but Universally insured by Mother Nature herself.

That's something to think about, as the National Debt climbs ever skyward - up through the trees and beyond - higher than any smart squirrel would ever think of going.

Flying squirrel's slow progress

The injured flying squirrel in India is back in the news today. I am not sure whether it is progress that the veterinarians are reporting, or just the certainty of a diagnosis.

But they have arrived at the conclusion that there is definitely spinal fracture in this little fellow. Here in the States, a squirrel with a spinal fracture is usually euthanized, a tragic but often necessary outcome if the animal cannot use its own limbs or eliminate on its own. In the case of this rare Indian squirrel, there is some movement of the tail, which is a very good sign indeed. Even if he cannot go back into the wild, perhaps he can nonetheless be saved.

The vets, meanwhile, are monitoring his case closely.

So are we. We will continue to check in on him and think good thoughts.

A "get well" card for a special squirrel

A very special patient is getting intense medical attention this week at the Mannuthy Veterinary College Hospital in Kerala, India: A 4-year-old giant male flying squirrel. An Express News Service article, dated Sept. 30, described how the squirrel, part of an endangered species, had been found injured near a power line in Silent Valley National Park, and was suspected of having suffered spinal trauma.

There is a photo of him with the article. He is wide-eyed, beautiful - and very likely frightened at the prospect of being surrounded by would-be predators who are, in reality, kind humans trying to help him. There is also a story in The Hindu, another news outlet, and it indicates the squirrel is rare - and thus, much-treasured.

Knowing that this kind of gentle spirit and caring exists for this Indian national treasure is an affirmation at a time when much of what we hear includes news that squirrel hunting season is in full swing or we read stories of animal abuse and torture. It tells me the world is in balance, that there is some good that helps wipe out the horror.

Let us wish this squirrel a speedy recovery. There is an awful lot riding on it - for the injured male squirrel and for the rest of us, too.

Trying to save them all

I am upset by a New York Times article about the struggle Texas rehabbers are having, trying to salvage what's left of the baby squirrels down there since Hurricane Ike swept through. It is daunting and it is heart-breaking, and the photo accompanying the article makes me wish they could all be kept safe forever.

To add to that grief, tonight I visited an animal hospital to assess two seemingly healthy baby squirrels being kept there. True, they are safe from harm, but they are warehoused for the most part and on a substandard, inappropriate diet, largely because there is no one available in the local rehab community, during this peak baby season, to take them. So the animal hospital staff is doing the best it can for these non-paying clients. Right now, everyone, including me, is swamped. And so when I had to leave the hospital empty-handed, it bothered me. It troubles me now. It will haunt me further tomorrow.

I am doing some networking to see if we can't somehow get them placed, even temporarily, until something a little more long-term opens up for them. They need to be with someone who can care for squirrels appropriately.

I wish we could save them all. From hurricanes. And from the blizzard known as baby season. I know we can't. But that doesn't stop me from wishing.

Speaking of (and speaking to) squirrels

From North Carolina, the state that seems to have cornered the market on Eastern Gray Squirrels, comes this report, "Squirrel speak: it's more than just noise."

The state, which takes credit for the species' origin or at least the earliest records of its existence, is proud to have the eastern gray as its official animal. Better still, this North Carolina student newspaper, the Technician, in which the article appears, is going a long way toward fostering interspecies communication. It may yet give rise to a whole new career field: squirrel linguistic interpreter.

Squirrel speak: it's more than just noise - Features

Paying it forward

Wildlife rehabilitators often wonder about the impact their efforts make. In a world full of so-called "anonymous" wildlife, one squirrel is the same as the next to the uninitiated. You lose one, you save one, and the cycle goes forward, season after season.

Unless you are a part of it and hold these squirming little lives in your hands, you may not think anyone stops to grieve when one doesn't make it. But there are plenty of us who do.

And we struggle with them all. I have so far gotten 8 youngsters into care since the start of "fall baby season." In a litter of three who were nearly 5 weeks old, there was one little fellow, the victim of some kind of head trauma and only able to breathe with difficulty. He succumbed after only a few days. His eyes had just opened a day or so earlier. I am glad he got to see the world first before he left it, but I wish I had been able to do more to keep him in this world. I felt that, despite my efforts, I had not made a difference.

And then a friend in Pennsylvania wrote about a baby chipmunk he had just come across, quite by accident. The little one had no use of its back legs. He knew it was important to rescue the baby safely and get it into the care of a rehabilitator he knew.

I will never meet this chipmunk. But of course this little soul is now on my mind as if I had held him with my own hands - like that baby squirrel. As my friend wrote in his e-mail to me today, if it had not been for all those sagas, the happy and sad ones, that I shared with him, he might never have even noticed the little baby, or even made the effort to save him.

I hope he does not mind my borrowing from his e-mail, but here is what he wrote:
The next time you're weighing the amount of good that you're doing please consider your inspirational effect on other people. It was as if I had you looking over my shoulder and telling me what should be done, and I mean that in the best possible sense.

These words bring sustenance. I have to believe that the little boy squirrel, whose life passed too soon just a few days ago, has been part of that inspirational force. He - and all the others - the saved squirrels and the ones who could not be helped - are now part of paying it forward for all the little lives ahead.

And yes, there will be more. Many more.

From the treetops to the toilet?

This very odd story, which I have cut and pasted below, appeared in a recent article in the St. Catharines Standard, an Ontario newspaper. It is the story of a flying squirrel who went flying in a most unconventional manner - out of someone's toilet and into his face.

I must say, a toilet is not the most comfortable nesting spot for a squirrel, let alone any creature (even a sewer rat) and how he actually got into the toilet is a subject for conjecture. But at least there was a happy ending that was (thankfully) not initiated by the sound of a flush. The squirrel got his freedom back and hopefully is living a life devoid of indoor plumbing.

Boy gets surprise when squirrel jumps out of toilet
Posted By THE CANADIAN PRESS
Posted 18 hours ago
A young boy received quite a surprise this week when a flying squirrel jumped out of the toilet at him.
Keith Schuk went into the family bathroom earlier this week and lifted the toilet seat; a furry critter leaped out of the bowl at him and landed on the floor.
"It turned out to be a flying squirrel," said his 16-year-old sister, Marlaina. "It was wet from the water and at first we thought it was a rat. Our parents, who were both working, could not believe our story."
The 12-year-old boy arranged for a friend to come and capture it, but the brownish-black squirrel with webbing connecting its front and rear legs didn't exactly run away.
"It's a nocturnal creature, so it just curled up in a can in the bathroom and went to sleep," said Keith's mother, Audrey.
"We were able to capture and remove it while it was sleeping," she said, adding the family released the squirrel into a bush area.
The consensus is that the squirrel came down the sewer breather pipe from the roof, and found an escape through the toilet.
The nocturnal, arboreal rodents have a furry membrane extending between the front and rear legs that allows the animal to glide through the air.
Northern flying squirrels' gliding distances tend to be between five and 25 metres, with average glides being about five metres less for females.

Detours for two squirrels

We went into the woods this week to release a group of three young squirrels back to the wild: Massa, Angel and Little Fellow.
Only two, ultimately, went to freedom: Angel and Little Fellow
Our intention was to release Massa too, and my anxiety over her suitability for release since last spring has been chronicled here in this blog - the misshapen rear leg, the seven toes and the slight neurologic movement. Still, it is my job as a rehabilitator - and my intention - to see that every animal gets a chance when appropriate.
As soon as Little Fellow and Angel sailed out of the release hatch, Massa followed as if shot from a cannon. It was joyful for her, at least for the moment.
Suddenly the gift of freedom betrayed her, caused undue stress and she began to spin. Unlike her cagemates, she did not ascend to the trees. She remained grounded. I knew then she had to be caught and brought back home.
We got lucky. I placed the holding cage over her during a spinning episode and recaptured her.
My intention was to release her but Massa must be given more time now.

A day or so later, a colleague at work informed me she had rushed a squirrel to the vet on her way to the office. The animal was off the side of the road, writhing from an apparent run-in with a car. My coworker bravely scooped the adult up, found a vet she knew accepted wildlife, and left the squirrel there. She asked me to please call the vet, check on the squirrel's status and, of course, offer to provide continued care in rehabilitation after the squirrel's triage.
Yes, of course I called. But I learned less than an hour later, the squirrel had to be euthanized; the damage from the car was too great for any chance of survival.
My friend had hoped to save this squirrel and, of course, that never happened. She did spare the squirrel further suffering and I told her that what she did was a brave and caring thing.

Still, her intentions with that squirrel, like mine with Massa, had no influence whatsoever over the outcome.

So do our intentions still matter? I believe so. Without intentions we don't act at all. And without taking action, we do no good on this planet for humans or for animals.

Yes, we must keep trying.

The 2008 Squirrelympic Games

Competitive nut-cacheing.
Forward roll and other gymnastics.
Bird-feeder dismantling.
Wrestling. (Lots of wrestling).
Acorn-hurling.
The 100-yard vertical dash.
The 10-meter branch leap.
Marathon chattering.

Welcome to the Squirrelympic Games, playing not just in 2008 but every week of every year in just about every yard where you'll find trees, nests and a hospitable environment for these natural athletes.

Ok, so they're not Michael Phelps (it would be hard to fit that bushy tail into a Speedo anyhow, and I'm not sure I'd want to see the, uh, end result) - but let's be brutally honest. No one can swim a 200-meter butterfly and 200-meter freestyle like him but, can this guy crack nuts between his teeth?

Aha, I thought not.

Why do we humans have to wait every few years for an Olympic extravaganza when the guys in our yards and parks and woodlands get to do this every day of every year? They've got game, all right. (In fact the fellow pictured here with the fabulous upper body strength is from the Daily Mail, in the UK. My Connecticut friend, upon seeing his photos, decided to nickname him Squir-hurcules!!!!!)

So let's take our cue from them, for a change. Forget the gold, the silver and the bronze. Let's go for the Gray!

Because they all count

I want to write this before I forget. Because tomorrow morning, I am taking a trip to the pet crematory only a few miles south of here, with the body of a young female squirrel who came into my life late Friday and was gone from it by early Saturday.

I got the call on Friday afternoon from a woman in an apartment complex about 7 miles away. No one, not even the SPCA, had responded to her pleas to help what she thought was a wounded squirrel in the apartment courtyard. Could I help?

Catching her was easy enough. She was twitching and rolling on the ground. I held the small cage over her and she rolled in. Her twitching was tough to watch. I'm not sure if she was having seizures, or had been poisoned, or what, but I got her home, gave her some warm bedding, and after a bit, got some fluid into her slowly. She drank from the syringe, even tried to hold it - unusually submissive for an adult, even a young one - and I got the sense she wasn't completely cognizant of her surroundings.

She calmed. She slept. She ate. She even tried to nibble on a small bit of soft corncob I put in for her. When I got back from work after midnight, she took a second feeding later - some more fluids, mainly - and was voracious.

In the morning I found her stiff and lifeless. There was not a mark on her, though I know she could have fallen, or been struck by something that did not leave a readily visible mark.

I will probably never know. I do know she died warm and she was not on the cold ground that night dying her slow death under the watchful eyes of raccoons or other predators.

I did what I could for her, which was not much, in the long run.

But because they all count - at least to me -I am writing about her here because her life mattered and it was worth trying to save. Even though saving her was, in the end, beyond me.

Good "neighbours" to the North

My friends Rich and Luis have left the States for a new life in Canada - specificially Vancouver in British Columbia. I have been reading their blog and, with each new post, have been falling in love with many things Canadian, from the verdant wilderness they camped in, to the elegant newly built luxury highrise in which they've rented an apartment with glorious views of mountains, parks and the coast.

But nothing can top the squirrels. The squirrels of Canada, the ones they met and photographed, have prompted me to consider dual citizenship. This post in particular won my heart. Who can resist the little red squirrel, and the golden mantled ground squirrel?

Perhaps we need to consider a Squirrel Exchange program between our two nations. Something called NASTA - North American Squirrel Trade Agreement.

It's something to think about, anyway.

One statuesque squirrel

Members of the Richland County Rotary Club in Olney, Illinois - a city blessed with an infamously abundant white squirrel population - have come up with an idea of monumental proportions: The idea is, itself, a monument of big proportions and even bigger ambition.

Rotarians hope to commission a white squirrel statue as a tourist attraction in that southeastern Illinois community. The Olney Daily Mail, that community's newspaper, broke the story on July 31, quoting one Rotarian, a member of the local convention and visitors bureau, as drawing his inspiration from another statue - this one in Minnesota - of two figures from American folklore: the mythical giant lumberjack Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe.

Now, a blue ox is no white squirrel, to be sure. And while Bunyan remains the stuff of folklore, white squirrels are an everyday reality in Olney. But like the towering Bunyan and Babe, they are indeed oversized attractions, if only by virtue of their reputation.

I had the pleasure, years ago, of posing beside an oversized wooden statue carved of Punxsutawney Phil, the prognosticating woodchuck/groundhog, while visiting that town in rural Pennsylvania. And I learned from that experience that, when it comes to tourism, Humongous Statues of Rodents are Humongous Tourist Magnets.

I encourage the people of Olney to embrace a white squirrel statue as they embrace their squirrels. They should throw it some nuts - and then throw it their support.

One Corn-Founded Squirrel!

We all have a right to be mad, but this irate chipmunk takes the cake (or at least the cornbread). He doesn't seem self-possessed - rather he seems completely possessed. Could he have just finished reading Stephen King's "Children of the Corn" perhaps (or seeing the movie)?

Thanks to my friend Chet in Pennsylvania, who captured this image of the cutest and grumpiest chipmunk on Planet Earth, we now know that squirrels have their bad days too.

Even in his apparent anger, he seems somewhat regal though, as if seated upon the cob as his throne. I can just hear him declaring, throughout the kingdom, "Off with their ears!" (This is corn, remember, not lettuce, so there's no need for any beheadings.)

Anytime I am having a bad day (and I've had a few this week that came close) I will think of this fellow. Even when the chips are down, this chip is definitely up.

Long live the King of Corn!