Squirrel tales

This little guy was so intent on eating and so used to humans I could take photos of him up close. There are a lot of tall, old trees in the neighborhood, which make perfect hang-outs for squirrels. So, we have a lot of them skittering around.

Last October, I put out several miniature pumpkins on our front step to decorate for Halloween. One by one, they began disappearing. Finally I happened to catch a glimpse of the thief, a brazen squirrel, sitting on our porch roof munching away on a pumpkin.

A gal I work with is an animal lover and puts out food for squirrels at her house. One day she’d bought a large bag of peanuts for the squirrels on her way to work and left it on the back seat of her car when she parked in our office lot. She left windows open a crack because it was hot. When she later returned to her car, she found that several squirrels had managed to squeeze in through the windows and had been having a grand feast. It took about 45 minutes to get the squirrels out of the car, not to mention cleaning up the mess.

This same person also trained a squirrel to come into our office, go through a maze, and climb up on a desk to get a peanut. She named the squirrel Gladys. Unfortunately one day Gladys, driven by her mad peanut addiction, sprinted across the street in front of a car. So, she ended up in that big maze in the sky; probably is still sitting and feasting amid a pile of everlasting peanuts.

Here are some unusual video clips of squirrels, including one that features an encounter with a candy machine:
http://www.squirrels.org/video.html

((((^)))) ((((^)))) ((((^)))) ((((^)))) ((((^)))) ((((^))))

Squirrels for nuts contend, and, wrong or right,
For the world's empire kings ambitious fight.
What odds?--to us 'tis all the self-same thing,
A nut, a world, a squirrel, and a king.
-Charles Churchill

Too much even of food most squirrels enjoy can be bad for them. For example, many wildlife rehabilitators agree that over-indulging on peanuts or walnuts can cause some squirrels to have elevated levels of phosphorus, and therefore to become over-excitable.

[Just look at what happened to Gladys…]
-JustSquirrels.com