It’s highly likely that you’ve noticed my bias toward birds. I love birds, I live birds, I adore birds. I have no idea how or why this happened to me, but I have been kissed with the bird lover’s gene and I spend a tremendous amount of time watching them, listening to them and thinking about them. It’s just something that happens without any prompting from the world.
I keep monthly bird lists for my yard and every year I try to see if I can set a new record for each month. I am pleased to say that last month, due in part to the home confinement required by current circumstances, I was able to break the old record of 61 species in my yard. At the time I sat down and wrote this column, I had 63 species on my list and there was still time to add more.
Just think about that for a moment. While staying within the boundaries of a six-acre plot, I was able to detect the presence of 63 different species of birds. I am thrilled, but I am also aware that there have to have been at least a couple more species that passed through undetected. After all, I sleep at night and occasionally have to go to the grocery store, so I miss things. Even so, it would take me over a year to write columns for each of the birds I saw, or heard last month.
In contrast, the world of mammals is quite less “exciting.” You might be able to count the number of different mammal species that you see in an entire year on the fingers of both hands and you’d be lucky if you saw more than five different types of mammals in a single day. Predators are only rarely seen, leaving chipmunks, squirrels, rabbits and deer. Mammal lovers — those of us who are biased toward our little furry neighbors — have many fewer species to pay attention to.
For me, it is easy to fall down the birding “rabbit hole.” I can get lost in all things feathered and lose track of the mammals, amphibians and insects with which we share this planet. I usually fall into that hole in the winter when there isn’t much other than birds to watch. Dragging myself up out of the hole can require tremendous willpower, but occasionally nature gives me a nudge. Nature nudged me last week.
A female red squirrel had been seen loitering around the deck for quite some time. She was obviously a mother squirrel who had obviously been nursing a brood of baby squirrels and as time passed she became more urgently interested in the birdseed and water that I had made available. Lactating mothers require a lot of food and water and to find both in such close proximity is a real bonanza.
I simply started counting the days because I knew it was only a matter of time before the babies were led to this land of plenty. Then, as I knew it would, it happened. Instead of one mother squirrel, we had a mother and three very small babies. It might actually have been their first foray out into the world and they were ridiculously and wonderfully “innocent.” They had no fear whatsoever and as soon as their mother saw they were distracted, she ran for it.
The babies have been permanent fixtures here ever since. I have some flower boxes that straddle my deck railings and they have cutouts for two different railing widths. My railings are wider, which means the narrow cutout is left as an open tunnel under the box. As soon as the little squirrels discovered this, they moved in.
They are so trusting of my beautiful wife, Susan, and I that we can sit within four feet of them and they will happily munch on sunflower seeds while we talk about them and laugh. Susan has become so attached to them that she named them Murgatroyd, Euclid and Neville von Bronnstein. Euclid is a little female, but we can’t really tell the brothers apart.
As if they weren’t cute enough, we noticed that they behave a little like young humans do. Every morning, at about 10:30 a.m., they seem to succumb to the need for a nap. During one of these napping sessions, I managed to get my camera out and snap a photo before the magical moment passed. One of the brothers, who had his heinie in the “tunnel” under a flower box, had slowly been feeling his eyelids get heavier and heavier. Occasionally, a passing bird would cause those eyes to open, but eventually the Sandman won, and with his head resting on one of his paws, he drifted off to sleep.
Like human children, little squirrels grow up quickly and their “friendly” disposition will be replaced with a fiery attitude that is best described as an alert indignance. My mere presence may require a scalding blast of critical chatter that will be entirely undeserved. I’ll still be me, but their changing attitudes won’t allow them to see it that way. Kids, right?
Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 23 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the US Forest Service and the Massachusetts State Parks and currently teaches high school biology and physics. Visit www.speakingofnature.com for more information, or go to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.