Trigger warning: blood!
Yesterday I posted this photo of an injury I sustained, and asked readers to guess what caused it:
Given what readers know of me, the most common answers were “bit by a duck” and “bit by a squiirrel.” It turns out that the latter answer (first suggested by Robert Wooley) is correct. Ducks can’t really bite, at least not hard enough to break the skin, and when I’ve fed them out of my hand, they simply hoover up duck pellets from my open palm. No duck has ever caused me pain (I’m ignoring swimmer’s itch from parasites in the pond as well as the injury I sustained as I ran to rescue a baby duck being attacked by a mallard hen, slicing open my ear as it was caught on a thorny tree).
The most accurate answer came from Johan Kleynhaus:
Our host posted photos some time ago of him feeding the squirrels. My best guess is an over-excited squirrel, at the prospect of scoring a fat nut, who jumped up and the boss’s thumb got in the way.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, and comrades, that’s the answer.
I have been feeding squirrels in two places: around Botany Pond and in the Regenstein Library courtyard across the street, for winter is coming on and the fluffy rodents need to lay in their food.
Now the squirrels around Botany Pond know me, and run to me when I whistle. Several of them will even crawl up my leg to retrieve a nut from my hand, and, since they know me, they are not aggressive. But the squirrels at Regenstein are not yet used to me. I’m training them by throwing them nuts and making my characteristic whistle, just as I did at Botany Pond. They now know to come to my whistle, but they’re still wary of me.
One of the great pleasures of feeding squirrels is seeing them encounter big nuts for the first time, and not knowing what to do with them. (They learn quickly.) I’ve been giving them hazelnuts in the shell, as well as pecans in the shell. They particularly love pecans, and can handle them well as one end is pointed, making it easy to grab with their mouths, after which they run off and bury the nuts. (They store most of what I give them for the winter, which raises the question of whether they remember where their nuts are buried.)
The local store ran out of pecans, but I found that good walnuts in the shell are available at a reasonable price ($4/pound) on Amazon, and I bought several pounds. I put about five nuts in my pocket as I walk home each day, dispensing them to whoever comes to my whistle. Yesterday, though, the rodents were ravenous, and I ran out of walnuts before I got to the library. But I was still approached by a hungry squirrel who ran up to me. I had a few hazelnuts left: small ones. It’s not wise to give a small hazelnut to a squirrel who doesn’t trust you, as they’re inclined to simply go for your hand to get the nut, and that means the possibility of being bitten. Which I was. The little fellow didn’t intend to hurt me, but simply wanted that nut come hell or high water. And, grabbing it, it bit me by accident.
Squirrel bites are nasty, for their sharp incisors go through flesh like butter, leaving a deep slice like a knife. And that’s what happened yesterday. I will no longer feed hazelnuts to unfamiliar squirrels. But the wound isn’t dangerous, for squirrels almost never carry rabies, and this one acted normally. I went home, cleaned off the cut, soaked it in very hot water for a while, and then doused it with isopropyl alcohol. Here’s what it looks like today. There is no pain. (Sorry for the blurry photo; I don’t know how to take closeups with my iPhone). Note that the slice is small, but produced a lot of blood because it was deep. (I also have superglue on my thumb, as I got it on my hands while trying to glue together a plastic key fob. I am a schlemiel.)
This wasn’t the first time I got chomped by a squirrel. I was badly bitten during my first job at the University of Maryland. As I walked home one day, I saw a student playing with a baby squirrel in a tree outside my building. It was small and adorable, and the student held it and petted it. I couldn’t resist. “Can I hold it, too?”, I asked foolishly. “Yes, of course,” she said. “Will it bite me?” I asked. “No, she said,” “it doesn’t bite.” I picked up the squirrel, whereupon it put its front legs around my thumb (the same one!) and chomped deeply into the pad of flesh and fat at the base of my thumb. It wouldn’t let go, and I shook my hand to dislodge the attacking rodent. “Don’t hurt it!” she cried, oblivious to my own pain. It was one of the most painful injuries I ever sustained.
And the cut was deep. It immediately began spewing blood—a lot more than in the first photo above. And within a few minutes the base of my thumb swelled up to the size of a ping-pong ball. I thought I’d better go to the doctor, but it was hard to locate one, as it was Sunday. I finally managed to find one after a few hours, and the doctor took a look and pronounced it “a nasty bite.” He told me that I wouldn’t get rabies, but since the bite occurred a few hours before, he thought they may have to open up my hand and do something to prevent infection (an operation?). At any rate, the doctor didn’t do that, but used some device to open up the cut, and then made me sit in his office for half an hour soaking my hand in the disinfectant betadyne.
Yes, I am foolish, but I’m not going to stop feeding squirrels. I will just be more careful, and will feed unfamiliar squirrel just by dropping the nut in front of them.
That is my story. I have another tale about being bitten through my nostril by an albino baby skunk, but that’s for another day. . .
I won’t say you never learn Jerry, but I guess you needed a refresher course. Glad this bite isn’t as bad as the first one!
I was assured by the squirrel’s owner the first time that it wouldn’t bite me!
No good deed goes unpunished.
“I will no longer feed hazelnuts to unfamiliar squirrels.”
This is a pretty narrow conclusion to draw. Adherence to this singular limitation could earn you another bite! 🙂
I know I shouldn’t talk. I was once bitten by a snapping turtle when I tried to feed it a worm by placing it in front of him. When the turtle didn’t take the worm, I reached for it (to resume fishing) and the turtle’s neck shot out like a left jab and its jaws grabbed my finger. It let go as quickly as it had attacked, else I’d be one finger short today. It was a big Common Snapping Turtle, a good foot across. That led to an emergency room visit and a tetanus shot.
Tetanus shot?
About 25 years ago, I was between jobs for a while, so I spent a lot of time watching and feeding the squirrels in my back yard. They all loved peanuts, but one was particularly brave in approaching me when I was doling them out. (I named him “Peanut,” of course.) He soon learned to take one end of a peanut in his teeth as I held it by the other end. This went on for a long time.
Then one day, without thinking much about it, I decided to see if he would take it from my palm instead. I extended my hand with the peanut, palm up, fingers out and toward Peanut. Whether out of confusion, bad eyesight, or simple force of habit, he bit into the thing that was closest to him–my middle finger.
As Jerry says, it was one of the most painful injuries I’ve ever had. I made it worse by reflexively pulling my hand away, turning a puncture wound into a laceration.
But it was entirely my fault, not Peanut’s. I simply failed to think about how the situation would look from his point of view.
Thereafter, we went back to the peanut-end-first presentation, and all was well.
The squirrel can’t have been that hungry. If there are squirrels anywhere, it means they are finding enough to eat.
Do you really have to take the fun out of my post with comments like this?
At the risk of angering Jerry, I’m with you, Leslie. I have been trying for decades to educate the public about the many problems associated with feeding wildlife (of any kind. No matter how cute they are or how much fun the feeder derives from it) of any kind.
Glad to hear it went ok!
For scenarios like this, there’s these tiny single-use alcohol wipes or antibiotic singles available usually at the local megapharmacy or Amazon – sorta like those Wet-Naps at the BBQ/seafood restaurants. They are easy to stash 1-3 at a time in a pocket or something. First time I used them I was sold – daily standard for me now, stashed all over! Gets you peace of mind until you can give the wound better care.
I stayed overwinter once in a very wild place with lots of squirrels. In the fall the adult squirrels would take nuts from our hands but a bit wary – but come next spring when the babies began foraging independently they had no fear of us at all and would happily climb and romp all over us and go into pockets etc. charming and a tiny bit disconcerting.
Given the many variables with hand-feeding squirrels, it would be prudent to wear a glove on the feeding hand.
Yeah, I wouldn’t do it either!
Here am I worried about your skating hobby over the ice-capades of Chicago, being happy summer is over so you won’t be dipping-for-parasites in the Pond… but all along you’ve been wrestling with the local wildlife! Heavens!
In the covid era I took to feeding the pigeons in our local park here – I’d whistle and a huge flock would descend on me and my unamused doggie sidekick.
Feeding urban fauna is fun – but don’t get involved in squirrel turf wars anymore please. Those guys play for keeps.
D.A.
NYC
ps Had to laugh at all the blood though: even small wounds in hands (and heads) bleed like the Dickens!
Yesterday, partly in jest I posted about Pooh & Gorse and suggested a thorny shrub as a distant possibility so I was intrigued by this:
“slicing open my ear as it was caught on a thorny tree”
Seeing the cleaned-up wound: when I was way too young, late ’60’s, (late high school, early college) I was a part-time hourly worker in a lab working with hamsters (Margaret Orsini) in the UW-Madison Dept. of Anatomy. Hamsters can and do bite, looks just like that. (My college major and first try in grad school turned out to be in Botany. My deeper learning came later in a different field.)
The location of the bite is important, explained Orsini, who previously had been bitten into a finger tendon sheath with some complications.
I feed birds in my backyard, which means I feed squirrels and chipmunks. In my observation, they always behave aggressively as if they are on the verge of starvation. Doesn’t matter how plump or recently fed they are-
What sort of superpowers do you get from squirrel bites? Does the squirrel have to be radioactive?
Squirrelman, Squirrelman
Does whatever a squirrel can…
I grew up in Olney, IL, Home of the White Squirrels: there is a colony of albino squirrels and the municipal symbol is a white squirrel. There were very tame squirrels near an old age home and I had them eat out of my hand. No bites fortunately.
I was bit by a mole several years ago. I am bizarrely proud of this, for the stupid reason that it has happened to so few people. The bite was entirely my fault and I owe an apology to the mole for bothering it. I was in someone’s garden and saw something that resembled a long, slim toupee scurrying across the asphalt toward the grass. I was thrilled to see a mole in motion and wanted to get a closer look, so I put my foot in the creature’s path, forcing it to pause. Before it could turn around I picked it up, and the mole immediately began wriggling around and desperately biting my fingers. Its teeth were tiny but sharp and the bites stung like needles, so I quickly dropped the mole and it ran into grass. I don’t recall bleeding much but I was much impressed by the mole’s defensive capabilities.
I have never heard of anybody being bitten by a mole, much less picking one up! But remember, they can barely see.