Most people think of gray squirrels as tenacious thieves who raid their bird feeders and interfere with their good intentions of feeding and watching birds in their yards. It frustrates them that squirrels possess the keen native intelligence to outsmart most anti-squirrel tactics they employ to bar them from their premises. Others, like me, in the minority, find some virtue in this creature who does what he needs to do to stay alive.
On the outdoor stage, squirrels are vibrant characters in a silent nature film. They are nimble acrobats in a three-ring circus, who perform death-defying feats for me to see throughout the theater of the four seasons. They leap through the air like Spiderman springing from building to building, and careen across telephone wires like tightrope walkers.
It’s when autumn’s dazzling colored leaves have grown old, and swirl down to mingle with the ground, that you can vividly see squirrels scampering up and down bare branches and tree trunks with their tails spread over their backs like parachutes.
When Old Man Winter breathes snow and ice upon our spirits, observing wildlife is scarce, but squirrels stay on the stage. I peer out my windows eager to see them chasing each other up and down and around, crisscrossing towering trees that reach to the sky, like capricious children playing tag with wild abandon. I focus my eyes on one squirrel on a lofty limb and follow him. I worry if he will fall as he runs along unsteady, pencil thin branches that sway in the wind; but his sharp claws never seem to fail him. He rockets from branch to branch, and sprints up and down the tree trunk like a well-greased zipper.
Squirrels are part of nature’s checks and balances. Yes, they steal seed out of bird feeders, pull up new plants and eat bulbs from gardens, but they’re doing what comes naturally to them to survive. They prey upon nesting birds and their eggs, but cats, hawks and owls prey on them. Occasionally, they may damage trees by chewing bark and branches, but since their two upper and two lower teeth continually keep on growing, they need to gnaw to keep their teeth filed down.
They can hurt a tree’s new growth if they eat its buds and shoots, but on the other hand, if they overlook and don’t retrieve a seed or nut that they buried, it can germinate into a seedling tree in the spring, which helps replant our forests, or add to the natural landscape in our own yards.
I’m grateful for the lovely old oak and maple trees in my neighborhood who perform many kind deeds, one being to provide a habitat for squirrels. Like curtains opening up at a play I’m eager to watch, I anticipate seeing the daily show of squirrels in action as they go about their routines. If they packed up their nuts and took their act away, I’d surely miss them!
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