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We saw this squirrel the other night. And she's carrying one of her kids in her mouth over a thin black power line -- tree to tree, in search of better digs.
In her mouth! POWER line! Or...maybe it was a telephone line. But either way, it was crazy.
So she drops the first kid off on a big branch in this new, flush tree, takes a quick breath, and then heads back out to get kid number two.
This time across, she seems wiped out, stumbling dramatically -- we gasped! This is thirty feet over the concrete sidewalk. And kid number two is huge. At least half its mother's size.
Well the mom just barely makes it over, but make it over she does. We all cheered! And then back she goes. Step, step, then lying down on the wire, lying down. Embracing that wire, then step, step, oh god I'm so beat stumble. Lie down. Again. Then step. Spent.
We wondered why she didn't just walk on the sidewalk, nudging them along with her nose? A thin wire? Thirty feet in the air? Why make it so hard on herself? And then we realized Oh yeah. For a squirrel it's like: "we die on the ground."
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I loved squirrels, as I never saw any before I moved to the U.S. They were always one of those magical creatures from kids' books. We had mongooses.
Then I learned that the red quirrels we have here are invaders that have knocked out the local grays. Now I tease the kids about how tasty squirrel is supposed to be.
Well, she might have been avoiding the danger on the ground but it's also possible she was just showing off. I can see her sitting on her branch, talking to her fellow squirrels all like "and these humans were watching me like I was going to fall at any minute so I lay down like I was just out of energy. It was hilarious, you should have seen it!!" You never can trust a squirrel.
It's illegal now for squrrels to that. Police should have been called, or animal contol, that could take down the grid, get their droppings in the water supply, or possible even harbor nuts on their way to kill us. Good story, but you might want to take it down, can't let them do that, it's teh shame but it is the law.
what makes you so certain it was the mother?
RaptorMage writes: "what makes you so certain it was the mother?"
That's an excellent question. Actually, we really weren't certain, about gender or about the exact relationship between 'em.
In a first draft I had a thing in here about how someone suggested it was the mother and we all went with that, but it seemed to buckle the flow a little, so I left that part out.
Really, there were a lot of assumptions built in. For example: We concluded that this squirrel was moving her kids from an older, bare tree over to a younger, healthier tree, because that's how it looked to us. But it's possible that in fact "she" was paralyzing these entirely unrelated squirrels using some kind of mildly toxic venom, or modified vulcan deathgrip, and then moving them over to this other tree so she could have the original tree all to herself.
well, I originally asked out of the indignation appropriate to my role as SuperDad. but you're right. perhaps it was a "she". and perhaps the smaller squirrels were insane. and perhaps she was merely hoarding nuts.
interesting tangent. or are you both simply trying to bury law-abiding citizen imp's observation?
squirrel-scofflaw abettors...
beep. ixnay on the idgray. this wire is tapped. beep.
the "we die on the ground" line is great, perception=reality. what does the squirrel think when we drive cars 60mph? spin our children around by their arms? swim underwater? light a fire near our faces and smoke? shop at wal-mart?eat at mcdonalds and drink coke? allow 40+ million uninsured. war-monger? ok, this is getting away from me.
power lines, HA! we're the insane ones, and without fluffy tails no less.
we had a black squirrel living outside our first ground-floor apartment, and we named it miletus, for the turkish city we enjoyed on vacation. miletus named us ookishfreben and piljoinika, which if you speak squirrel, are quite complimentary.