Many readers commented about squirrels being agile cute and fast. Many people enjoy watching them as when they run trough the tree branches as if it was magic. Red squirrels are agile and seem to make those impossible moves look easy.
Well, I hate to rain on your party. Squirrels may be lightening quick and agile but they do have accidents.
Scientists studying squirrels find squirrel bodies that have broken bones. So apparently squirrels fall from heights that cause broken bones. Now I know you've never seen a squirrel fall but I have. I've seen a couple of spectacular crashes.
These crashes were so great that I told my classes the squirrel story for many years.
Now I called my story The Retarded Squirrel. Yes I know retarded is not an acceptable term.
So it goes like this. I have a long fence that has a 2 x 4 for a top. In other words the top of this fence is 4 inches wide. There was a squirrel in the area that would fall off the top of the fence. If it had happened once I wouldn't have made an issue out of it. But I did notice this squirrel fall off the top of the fence quite a few times.
Now the second incident with my retarded squirrel was more interesting to watch. There were trees on each side of an alley that stuck out over the alley. The squirrel wanted to cross the alley by leaping from one tree to the other. This squirrel took a lot of time to consider the jump. It ran up and down and around the tree to find the best place to leap from one tree to the other tree on the other side. Finally, a choice was made and you could see the squirrel saying one, two, three jump! Well the squirrel did not make it to the other tree across the alley. The squirrel fell about 3 meters into some soft snow. The squirrel shook itself and looked around as if to say, "What am I doing here?" Then it picked itself up and waded through the snow to a tree.
This was a story the kids loved and many years later I was asked if I still had my squirrel.
A sad note on my last post. This afternoon I found a squirrel that had been run over on the road. So one less competitor in this world.
July is an interesting time of year to watch Red squirrels. As I said in my last post they are setting up territory and there's some competition. Sometimes the competitions are a bit odd.
I do my stretching so that I can look out my front room window. I have a bird feeder out in the front yard so it gives me a few minutes to watch the bird feeder and anything else that happens.
So a few days ago an event took place. For some reason a Red squirrel was harassing a magpie. The squirrel would chase the magpie and the magpie would just keep ahead of the squirrel. There seemed to be a half dozen short sprints where the squirrel pursued the magpie. The magpie would hide under car and as soon as he came out the squirrel would chase.
Now a few years ago I saw a different squirrel magpie confrontation. This time there were two magpies and they had a Red squirrel cornered. The squirrel was on the tree trunk and one magpie was above and the other one below the squirrel. The squirrel wanted to gain the branches of the tree where it would be safe. The magpies were hoping the squirrel would make just one mistake and they would have lunch. The squirrel shifted from one side of the tree to another. He couldn't get up or down.
Finally the squirrel took a leap from the tree trunk and set off across the yard and street. The magpies flew above the squirrel, but as long as they were in the air the squirrel was safe. The squirrel ran under a fence and it threw the magpies off their game. They just thought the squirrel somehow disappeared and didn't realize the squirrel was on the other side of the fence.
So the squirrel magpie competition goes both ways.
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| Photo by Bill Heinsen |
This morning I was looking out my front window to check on feeder. I got more than I bargained for.
Two squirrels were chasing each other around and around the trunk of a large green ash. They continued this torrid pace for at least two minutes. I was expecting them to quit from exhaustion. I found out that they had a very high level of fitness.
Now my interest in watching the chase was to see how it ended. Was there going to be big squirrel dust up? Was one squirrel going to escape? Would it end up in a draw?
Well it ended in a draw. One squirrel ran into the upper branches and the other squirrel did not pursue.
Red squirrels are very territorial. Usually they just chatter at one another. You hear the chattering going on and again you wonder when they will be out of breath.
So the territorial squirrels can get very physical in claiming their territory.
I wish these characters would chase each other far away. They are a nuisance at my bird feeders.
How about you? Have you seen squirrel fights? How do you control squirrels at you bird feeders?
