The juvenile squirrels I’ve been feeding have become quite tame, and let me watch them from my office window with the blinds open. I can also watch them eating from only a few inches away without the slightest apprehension on their part (I have to stay behind the windowpane, though).
The mother squirrel, apparently pregnant again, occasionally visits for a ration of peanuts. (I’ve learned that gray squirrels have two broods per year, with the second remaining with mom in the nest over the winter.)
Anyway, after a big meal of peanuts, sunflower seeds, Virginia creeper buds, and water, this pair of siblings is taking a nap on my windowsill. I can literally lean sideways two feet to watch them as I write.
Tails make handy umbrellas when the sun is high:
how wonderful – to be able to watch squirrels like this π
Awwwwww!
One of the nicest work breaks I can think of.
Squirrelzzz
Those look like extremely well fed squirrels.
Tree rats, competing with the native red squirrel and damaging trees in the UK after some idiot introduced them years ago.
Just once it would be nice to see a post about our native U.S. squirrels without someone having to throw that in.
But I guess the same thing happens in reverse when we mention your frickin’ Passer domesticus.
π
Fair comment, but according to Wikipedia the house sparrow is considered a symbol of lust and sexual potency, also commoness and vulgarity. Make of that what you will.
Jeepers. Can’t you just enjoy the pictures?
I don’t appreciate this comment. Do you see at all how inappropriate it is on this thread?
It’s curious how much that posture resembles that of one of the favorite feline nap positions. Makes one wonder just how far back the evolutionary tree it goes, and if there’s any particular evolutionary advantage to it.
…and it would seem to be the case that, as with cats, the more uncomfortable-looking the sleeping squirrel, the happier she is….
b&
I’ve posted this question before (and someone may have answered it) but is there a reason that squirrels aren’t domesticated pets, like hamsters or guinea pigs?
Many years ago it was legal for pet stores to sell chipmunks, and my father bought two. They could and did chew their way out of metal cages, and then wreaked havoc in the basement, including getting into a neighbor’s clothes dryer and chewing up her clothes. (We lived in a triplex with an interconnected basement.)
Yours is a good question, though, since both smaller and occasionally larger rodents are sometimes domesticated. Personally, I can’t think of a cage that would do them justice; escape-proof-wise or simply squirrel-exuberance-wise. π
It’s not uncommon for people to keep pet grey squirrels, although you won’t find them in any pet stores I know of. When I was a boy I had a captive (not quite a pet) flying squirrel, which I regret today. Tame grey squirrels can be pretty aggressive. I’ve had one run up my leg and get right into my face for food, and that was only a semi-tame one on a campus quad. Freaked me out. They have big teeth and their claws are amazing.
I had a friend who took in a baby squirrel and raised it for a while. But one day they came home from a day out and the house was entirely trashed–curtains torn down, books thrown everywhere, etc. They were sure the house had been vandalized (called the police and everything) but then it turned out the squirrel had gone on some kind of rampage. I think they figured it was ready to be in the wild then.
–yes, their claws are amazing–the way they run up the sides of a tree means those things are razor sharp and very strong. And their teeth–I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to gnaw through a hickory nut, but I wouldn’t advise it.
Yes, maybe that’s where we get the idiomatic expression, “go squirrelly” but squirrels do tend to rampage like that.
As for keeping pets, I know animals like chipmunks go into torpor so keeping them may be problematic for the chipmunk.
My Google-fu suggests that they make for very challenging pets.
Your best bet is probably exactly what Jerry’s doing: befriending wild squirrels…but don’t invite them (voluntarily or otherwise) inside.
b&
Like vampires, squirrels should not be invited in. π You can feed them. I’ve fed chipmunks before but it takes a long time to get them used to you and sometimes they nip you buy accident because I don’t think they see all that well and they are a bit clumsy. They jump in shock at the same time you do though!
Homophone problems again “by”. I’m starting to wonder if I’m having mini strokes!
If that’s what causes that sort of thing, I’ve been having them since…oh…at least third grade….
Of course, you know what they say: it’s the mind that goes second. Never could remember what goes first….
b&
The occasional scratch and nip might be worth it, though. My hands are one of Baihu’s favorite toys. And he’s even recently re-discovered the bed toe-mice….
b&
I have a friend who’s uber-animal-care daughter was able to raise two gray squirrel infants (pups?) to adulthood and keep them (in a heavy cage, outdoors on a covered (roofed) patio) as long as she wished. They were very easy with her (handling-wise). She set them free after a short while; but they hung around for a long time.
But she is also the animal handler who has the most success and least trouble handling all sorts of beasts (it’s her profession now) that I’ve ever seen (she’s amazing — a real connection with the beasts). But even then she has a lot of bite scars!
Flying squirrels can make good pets. I had one for a month long ago, who came in from the wild and adopted me. The ending was tragic, and my fault, but properly done I think it could have gone on for a long time.
I have a friend who sleeps like a hamster π
I was just going to ask how the traits works out, since we should be closer to squirrels than cats are.
I guess Ben knows his naps!
Hmmm…I’m coming up with roughly the same not-quite-100 MYA figures for all permutations of humans, cats, and squirrels….
b&
Comfort must be in the eye of the beholder, as you’ve mentioned this before about positions that look decidedly cozy to me. π
Hmmm, ISTR that there have been recent discoveries of burrows with entombed dinosaurs – non-avian ones! – which were in a similar posture, which would imply either multiple evolutionary convergences on this posture, or a deep root near the “amphibian” – “reptile” – “mammal-like reptile” divergence. (Trivergence?)
[googles] But whole I’m googling, my memory is also telling me that there was a frog in the burrow too.
Hmmm, nope, not that one : http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/274/1616/1361.full.pdf+html . Maybe the frog one? [more googling] Ah, found it, last month on PLOS-one (open access ; excellent! ; probably why I saw it).
My memory was a bit distorted – the dinosaur isn’t particularly curled up. But the amphibian cohabitee is on one of the classical “cat zedded-out” poses – flat on it’s back on a self-warmed bed with legs akimbo. so there’s a different “deeply rooted” posture.
Image at http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0064978.g001/largerimage ; hopefully it won’t try to embed, because it’s nearly 3MB.
Sorry, forgot the link to the main 2-inhabitant burrow article.
The synchrotron scans of the fossils are a tremendous indication of the potential of advanced imaging techniques without the destructive risks of “pick and shovel” preparation techniques (even if the pick is a dentist’s tool and the shovel a camel-hair brush. The paper is worth a read just for the imaging, even if the palaeontology and palaeoecology leaves you unmoved.
That…is awesome. Thank you! I’ll have to read it carefully….
b&
Squirrels (especially the larger grey/black ones) are quite tasty. Marinade and casserole the hindquarters, allow one squirrel per person.
I remember a time when Internet trolls would trawl discussions for signs of somebody who liked cats and then proceed to spam the discussion with exactly this type of nonsense — cat recipes, tips for skinning a cat, jokes about giving cats illicit drugs, and worse.
It’s been so long since those times that I had naΓ―vely just figured that people in general had grown out of such behavior.
Guess I was mistraken.
Jesus Fucking Christ, people, what the hell is worng with you? Can’t you see that these squirrels are one step removed from being pets? That shit just ain’t cool. Never has been, never will be; all it does is mark you as an asshole, and not the type that people like to associate with.
b&
+1
This guy will not be posting here any more. Sorry, but he doesn’t get another chance. It’s just rude and gauche to write stuff like this.
Awww so cute!
Squee-rils!
So, I look down and my cats are in the same position. Apparently it is nap time, maybe I will take their cue in an hour or so.
I would like to have pet squirrel(s)in the sense of having wild squirrels who were not afraid of me, and who I would give an occasional peanut or pecan. I’m out where I could do this. My next door neighbor raised some squirrels, but they seldom, or never, came over to my place.
Saw a thing in the paper a while back against the idea of a squirrel as a dependent pet. There is a place which does pet squirrel rehab. Such squirrels are grossly obese and have no idea how to find food in the wild. They eventually put them out in a big enclosure with some wild squirrels for them to learn from.
Anyway I am envious of your squirrels.
“The mother squirrel, apparently pregnant again, occasionally visits for a ration of peanuts. (Iβve learned that gray squirrels have two broods per year, with the second remaining with mom in the nest over the winter.)”
Does anyone know if there are any appreciable differences (behaviour or otherwise) between these two broods as a function of these differences in time of birth and upbringing?
I have a similar thing going on with squirrels in my backyard now, two youngsters and their mother. I feed them seed corn by nailing the cobs to the fence, and then they also come under the deck to scavenge bird seed dropped from the bird feeder. The problem is β I also have a family of hawks about 75 yards farther off the property. Every single day the mother hawk is after the squirrels. The other day I saw her going after one while I was fixing breakfast and I had a handful of eggs in my hand at the time. I ran onto the deck and threw them at the hawk β yelling βGet away from my squirrels you bastard!β Now, as a fan of both baby squirrels and baby hawks, what is your opinion? Should I continue to protect the squirrels? Or just stay out of it?
Professor Ceiling Cat says that the squirrels get protection because your feeder exposes them to the hawks.
Keep protecting them. There might be a book in it for you if they live!
+1
You weren’t asking me, but I’ll chime in. I think you’re justified in doing anything you can to deter the hawk, short of lethal force. And if the hawk manages to take a squirrel chalk it up to selection and have a camera handy.
I wish I had squirrels, you are very privileged Jerry.
It’s funny that people like to insult squirrels by comparing them to rats. I’ve had rats as pets, and they are very intelligent, friendly, and rewarding animals. They look quite a bit like Jerry’s squirrels (and even sleep curled up just like that, though the naked tail is not as useful as a pillow/sunshield).
+ 1
We’ve had much loved rats, too. Fifi, Lulu, and Puddleglum. (I know…but my kids read the stories with no idea about their doctrinal overlay…)
I’m a fan of rats too. They are very smart and clean.
This is so heart-warming.
You’re a great Poppa, Prof. C!
Btw, the squirrel in the second to last photo almost looks like s/he has an upper lip piercing. π
I think the thing that makes all these animals extra cute is their whiskers. I want to cuddle them and pinch their cheeks! They have super sharp teeth too though π No, I haven’t tried to maul the squirrels and chipmunks in my neighbourhood but I want to!
The Missouri Department of Conservation has some helpful hints for you, Jerry:
http://tinyurl.com/lbe93uo
Did you see the comment above? Your post, which links to squirrel recipes, is simply insulting and gauche. What kind of person would post something like this? Certainly nobody that I welcome to my site.
I think you should do you reading and commenting at another website from now on.
My mother used to feed the neighborhood squirrels all sort of rare treats. They would come up to her and eat out of her hand. One day, she wasn’t quick enough with the goodies so a squirrel climbed up her leg and bit her! That closed the free lunch counter immediately. She never put food out again. Guess the moral is don’t bite the hand that feeds you…
I think squirrels are a lot more perceptive than we give them credit for. My dad told me that when he was a kid, he was walking with a friend and his friend threw a snowball at a squirrel. The squirrel made the angry squirrel chirping sound as it ran right up the guy’s leg and bit him on the lip! That is hilarious because the squirrel meted out squirrel justice!
I know I’m anthropomorphizing, but you can imagine the squirrel having a bad day and maybe having some other annoying boy throw snow at him/her and finally snapping like Michael Douglas in Falling Down and risk be damned, that human was going to pay for that snow ball!
The squirrel version of stand your ground?? LOL!
My flying squirrel, Geronimo, noted above (well, he wasn’t MY flying squirrel*, he was the one that turned up on the corner of my bed one night long ago in the genteel, wooded, conservative suburbs of Richmond VA during my first foray in grad school) was far more well-behaved than that. Within two weeks of having adopted me, he was running up my pantleg and peering out my unzipped fly. I was naturally more than a bit hesitant the first time it seemed like that was where he was headed, but I couldn’t resist the chance to show the other grad student I was sharing the bottom of the house with. It became a routine and he never bit me in this or any other instance. What he did to, to show annoyance, was to run up the curtain and fly down, chattering – that was all.
* My first reaction on capturing him that nite was to set him back outside, but on opening the door, a CAT went past, something that never happened again in the year I lived there. I just shut the door and we became pals. Perhaps he understood that I was protection from feline marauding. And the food was good, too.
Reblogged this on yasarnorman.
No one lives at my ranch house. I was out there for a couple of days and made friends with a female rock squirrel who had, I think, babies under the house. I had some old pealed pecan halves, and soon got her comfortable to sit on my knee and eat pecans.
Once she nipped my finger, very gently. I don’t think I reacted (old and slow), but she immediately leaped down and looked up at me with a worried contrite expression. I didn’t know squirrels could do that. I assured her it was OK by offering her another pecan. I wish I had had the time to meet her babies and bring the whole family to my present place to live. There is an old rock fence where they could probably have found a good home.
In the urban ecosystem at the U of Pittsburgh, the women who tended the animal facility took to feeding the squirrels out on the loading dock. They got quite tame and would come up for a peanut. Then I guess they started showing up waiting for the women. And then either one of the peregrine falcons that inhabit the University’s Cathedral (~40 story Gothic skyscraper) or one of the red-tailed hawks in the environs moved in and dined on the squirrels.
Your post reads like a goulish cautionary tale to children not to feed wild animals π It’s up there with “never cry wolf”.
Discovery of plague-infected squirrel closes 3 Angeles National Forest campgrounds in Calif.
The little blighters.
To be fair, it’s the plague bacteria who are the ‘little blighters’, given that it is unlikely that the squirrel deliberately infected itself.