The tedium of writing is sporadically relieved by forays to my lab window, where I’ve installed a squirrel feeding station. Well, there’s a bag of peanuts and sunflower seeds nearby, from which I periodically put small handfuls on the windowsill. This week I’ve added a bowl of water since the temperature is over 90° F (32°C). There are two juvenile gray squirrels, about 60% the size of the adults, and a putative mother who is obviously lactating.
Here’s the lovely scene that greets me when I take a break:
I didn’t know if they would drink the water, but they do—often. Opening sunflower seeds is thirsty work!
After his noms, this guy took a nap with his tail in the water bowl, which made it all scraggly. Look at those graspy little squirrel feet!
It’s really nice to be able to walk about 25 feet and see a wild animal (if you consider squirrels wild).
ah, your welfare queens – I am sure they consider themselves wild. How lovely to have them so close and to be able to comfort them with water.
There is a squirrel in Chicago, she has eighty names, thirty nests, twelve fluffy coats and is collecting food on behalf of four non-existing deceased squirrel husbands. She’s getting free water, peanuts and sunflower seeds in twenty locations, and she is burying hazelnuts under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000.
This wins the thread.
It is nice to see wildlife up close. I have a groundhog that I love to watch who very kindly feeds on the weeds in my lawn. Her name is George – I named her before the babies came along.
I’ll be happy to bring you more. Where do you live?
Funny! Although if I had a herd of groundhogs maybe I wouldn’t have to mow my lawn anymore 🙂
Ground hogs dig holes so you walk along then oops broken leg. They are bad for horses and cows. I don’t think they eat grass either. What you need is a goat!
Hmm. Would one goat be enough? It could eat some of my garbage too – would save money on bag tags!
Goats do not eat grass unless there’s nothing else available. They are browsers; they eat leaves.
They will eat many varieties of weeds, too, but too much of that will affect the taste of the milk and meat.
And, they DON’T eat garbage. They are actually pretty picky. That got started because they eat the labels off cans because they like paper, which is made out of trees, which is their natural diet.
Please give us a break from the cliches.
Thx. L
It would’ve been better if you signed this, “The Goats”.
Indeed goats are picky. Donkeys too, at least according to a friend who has a large gentleman’s farm with, among other thing, some donkeys and goats. He takes tired produce from his store back to the farm, and it’s either the goats eat the bananas but not the peels and the donkeys eat the peels but not the bananas, or vice versa.
If I ever worked in a place that allowed you to bring in pets, I’d want to bring in a goat. It could pretty much clean out all the office supplies (paper clips, paper). 🙂
Squirrels = Rats with fluffy tails.
The little b***tards would eat all our tomatoes if given half a chance.
Thank you for dissing my beloved squirrels.
When I was a graduate student living in university housing, the housing office once sent around a newsletter that proclaimed “Squirrels, like rats, are rodents.” My immediate thought was “The people at the housing office, like baboons, are primates.”
Very good!
I like that quite a lot.
When the black walnuts are ripe, the squirrels carry them to my birdbath and leave them soaking in the water. Maybe it softens the shells? Walnut shells are tough nuts to crack, even considering squirrel dentition. Very clever of them! And, of course, the water has to be changed daily because the walnuts ooze an icky yellow-green-brown dye.
Grey squirrels have the cutest white bellies! 🙂 They do love to have water so it’s nice you added it. I wonder if you’ll find birds drinking from it and bathing as well!
I think squirrels look extra cute when you find them lounging on fences or branches in the heat on their bellies with their limbs all akimbo.
Urban wildlife is fascinating, especially when it’s the only wildlife one is likely to see. The park a block from where I live has crows, raccoons, deer, and coyotes. While I realize that the habitat destruction that drove them so deep into the city is not a good thing, I still like having them there.
Glad to get an update and to know your little pals are still hanging around.
I once had a lovely, gentle Golden Retriever named Arlo. Once when he was little more than a pup, I saw him carrying something in his mouth. It was a baby squirrel. Aside from being covered with slobber and terrified, it was unharmed. I put it in a box on the fence and the mother retrieved it immediately.
At the same house in California, I surprised one of the neighbor’s cats ambushing a squirrel. When the cat saw me it took off, extremely pissed off. The squirrel was squirting pulsing blood from the neck. I had to finish it off with a shovel, which wasn’t pleasant.
You like cats, and so do I, but outdoor pet cats and feral cats are a menace to wildlife.
Cats no more belong outdoors unsupervised off leash than dogs.
And, incidentally, they belong outdoors on a leash and / or supervised just as much as dogs do.
TNR is the best way to deal with feral cats, at least until we have a societal shift towards treating cats like dogs, including access to the outdoors and neutering. But, as it is, people think nothing of getting a cat, not neutering it, and letting it roam free or even abandoning it. That sort of treatment is unthinkable for dogs, but somehow unremarkable for cats. When that changes, the feral cat problem will mostly take care of itself.
b&
I love cats and I have shared a home with them for decades. But, I was recently put in a bad spot when a neighbor asked me to care for their pets while they were gone for the weekend. Their instructions for the cat were to let it outside at around 10 PM, then let it back in the following morning. So it could hunt. Lucky for me the cat refused to go outside when I offered it the door.
Seems like the cat’s smarter than its staff.
Baihu’s gotten slightly (thankfully, only slightly) stir-crazy the past few weeks since it’s been too hot, even after dark, to go for walks.
But it’s theoretically not going to break 100°F for the first time this weekend, and our overnight lows are supposed to be in the low 80s. If that holds, we’ll start walking again as soon as I get out of bed. He should like that.
b&
Ah yes. I lived in New Mexico for a few years and I remember the 100+ degree (F) temperatures for weeks at a time. Friends we knew at the time lost an award winning German Wirehaired Pointer hunting dog to the New Mexico heat. He was a truly impressive animal, named Eiko, that they got while we all lived in Germany together, and he was trained and qualified to hunt there (very serious stuff in Germany).
Eiko once ate an entire pan of muffins, pan and all (one of those disposable aluminum ones) that were left to cool on the counter top. Unfortunately one day in New Mexico he took off after a coyote and ignored his owner’s command to return. He chased the coyote down, killed it, brought it back to his owner, and then collapsed due to heat stroke.
Where I am now seems just as hot. The temp only hits mid 90’s, but that is typical not an occasional high, and the humidity is regularly 85% to 95%.
I hope Baihu gets his fix soon. I imagine he will soon loose patience and start gnawing on your feet at 4 AM to motivate you.
Poor Eiko — built for the temperate forests of northern Europe, chasing down coyotes in the heat of the Arizona Southwest. Had it been a fox in the Black Forest….
And, yes. Baihu did, indeed, demand I get up this morning…though it was closer to five than four. I think tomorrow might be the day to try a morning walk, but Sunday is looking more promising.
b&
There is a cat that belongs to the neighbour who was thinking about eating a chipmunk who was hiding (unsuccessfully – those chipmunk alarm calls really don’t help and they seem to go into a trance almost when they emit them) on the wheel of my car while the cat fixated on him. I opened the door and said in a completly normal voice “what are you doing, bad kitty?” and the cat took off home! It was actually amusing.
Fascinating. How, precisely, did you know your neighbor was thinking about eating a chipmunk?
The cat told me. It’s why the cat was there to get the chipmunk of course!
I think the cat was probably lying because it was ashamed to admit it was doing the d*g’s grocery shopping….
b&
Possibly, you can never trust that cat. It makes up stories all the time. I don’t believe it wears a bell because it won a “nicest stripes” beauty contest with the skunks either!
🙂
The domestic cat is responsible for the decimation of some species of toad and they are a threat to songbirds. They do not belong in the wild in the U.S. any more than humans do
You need one of these. (Once you finish the book!)
Very soothing.
We should domesticate squirrels through selective breeding! BAHAHAHA
Why hasn’t anyone tried domesticating squirrels? I think this is a great idea.
The last person who tried apparently went nuts.
As a researcher studying the evolution of sociality in squirrels I thank you for your appreciation for the urban residents of the clade!