Comments

  1. rq says

    I have very mixed feelings about squirrels (the North American kind, that is). Definitely cute and fluffy and I love the tails, but they can be quite invasive (in many different ways). There’s something to be said for their ingenuity and acrobatics, though -- I love watching them at play. Local squirrels are far shyer and less likely to frequent public places. But still fun to watch at play, if you can manage to catch them at it.

  2. says

    Oh, I have mixed feelings about the ones on my property. When we first moved to Almont, no squirrels at all. I was surprised, because we had them in Bismarck. Finally, one lone Fox squirrel made his home on property. We called him Wrongway, because he was the clumsiest squirrel -- fell out of trees, fell off the roof, splattered seed all over the place, etc.

    About a year later, Wrongway found himself a mate, and brother, were they prolific. We have dozens on property, and yes, it’s a lot of fun to watch the little ones play, and become excited and energized over *everything*, but they also eat a hell of a lot of bird food. Ours do leave the house alone, which I’m grateful for.

  3. rq says

    The ones living in our backyard in Canada did not leave the house alone, to the point where I once found a baby squirrel nervously making its way down the stairs (freaked me out like nothing else, that mysterious scritching, I was home alone at the time…) that did not know what to do with a tree when I finally took it outside (because I’m not putting it back into the insulation!). It’s been a bit of a battle, I hear, with troves of catfood discovered as the upstairs gets redone bit by bit…
    Then again, when I was little, we were in the middle of a forest, and civilization destroyed the forest in increments that pushed the squirrels into our backyard (still had trees!) more and more. So I suppose they had some excuse. Still! Out of the eaves, ye heathen!

  4. blf says

    Now this is just getting silly. Very silly indeed. Putting a rat into a rat-shaped puppet and calling it a tree rat, or grasshopper rat, or squirrat, or crunchy frog is, is, is, is, well, isn’t. The Ministry of Absurdist Rodents is probably going to have a squeak! at you.

  6. Ice Swimmer says

    The fox squirrel hasn’t survived without mishaps or fights, either, as there’s a piece missing from the ear. Does it still have winter fur on the butt in the pictures?

  7. says

    Ice Swimmer @ 6:

    I don’t know what’s happening with the fur there, it’s odd. There’s a fairly deep bite above the nose, too. Going by the size, this one is pretty young, and it’s most likely that a cat jumped him and tried to make a meal out of him. A while back, some people moved out of town, and apparently left a houseful of cats, which are now running loose all over.

    The squirrats don’t get into physical fights. They’ll chase one another, and sit in a tree and scold for ages on end, but that’s the extent of it.

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