All About Squirrels
A large family of squirrels frolics during their daily games in the big leaf maples’ canopy surrounding my backyard.
I am impressed with their agility, quickness, and ability to have fun while chasing one another around the branches.
They rarely fall, and on the rare occasion they do, their tails seem to act as a parachute keeping them from getting hurt. Linda often reminds me of their darker side. In her defense, Linda’s tirades against the squirrels often follow incidents where they have dug up tulip or crocus bulbs, broken off flower stems, and stolen food intended for the birds. Or it could go back to a time when she had to pay to have them removed from the attic in her old home. Accordingly, I have been instructed to chase them from the yard whenever they intrude, and to treat them as the enemy at all times. I am both our yard’s sheriff and posse.
I have free advice... “Don’t try to fool a squirrel.”
Squirrels are hunted in some areas of the country.
Many people around here simply wish to rid themselves of the squirrels that are damaging their property, and they may call in pest control. People who enjoy feeding wild birds have gone to extreme lengths to protect their feeders from the squirrels. Many of the more elaborate efforts have been highlight in film - squirrels often overcome quite complex obstacle courses in their route to snatch the food intended for others. Their ingenuity and agility is legendary.
Years ago, we heard a radio advertisement by a bank indicating that Longview, Washington had put up a monument to squirrels called “The Nutty Narrows.”
It was designed by residents to keep squirrels from getting run over by cars when they needed to cross a street to access some nut trees.
We felt that the idea of this type of structure was interesting enough to warrant our further investigation and began searching for it. We didn’t have an address or directions, so we just drove around Longview asking residents if they had heard of “The Nutty Narrows.”
On our third trip to Longview, we finally located the authentic sky bridge for squirrels. The bridge is next to Longview City Hall, and at the time we observed it, it had been freshly painted and cared for as if it were a piece of art. The bridge had an elongated, open dollhouse appearance and included components such as a miniaturized flag, squirrel housing structure, and enough other features to make it both fun to look at and enjoyable for the squirrels to play on. According to a local resident, “The Bridge still works very well.”
So there you have it, what I know about squirrels in a nutshell. I must excuse myself now as I think there may be a mole approaching the flowerbed, but that will have to be another story.
