I feel obligated to share a personal story with all of you before we delve into today’s squirrel content.
When I was a lot younger, my uncle told me a story about a squirrel I doubt I will ever forget. He told me that when he was a kid, he and a buddy decided to attempt to feed squirrels out of the palms of their hands. Things were going fine at first, up until said squirrel decided to chomp down on buddy’s hand and remove the top half of his index digit.
As much as I yearn to feed a squirrel from my own hand, this memory often prevents me from doing so.
Despite this somewhat jarring story, please enjoy the following information about these majestic creatures, coming to you from treehugger.com.
“Adult tree squirrels normally live alone, but they sometimes nest in groups during severe cold spells. A group of squirrels is called a ‘scurry’ or ‘dray.’
“All tree squirrels belong to the genus Sciurus, which comes from the Greek words ‘skia’ (shadow) and ‘oura’ (tail). The name reportedly reflects tree squirrels’ habit of hiding in the shadow of their long, bushy tails.
“In the 1850s, gray squirrels in urban city parks, like New York’s Central Park, were a rare sight. Tree squirrels had been nearly eliminated from many U.S. cities by the mid-19th century, but cities responded by adding more parks and trees—and by adding squirrels.4 Philadelphia held one of the first documented squirrel reintroductions in 1847, followed by others in Boston, New York, and elsewhere. By the mid-1880s, Central Park was already home to about 1,500 gray squirrels.
“Tree squirrels are known to dig fake holes to fool onlookers and throw off thieves—a move known as ‘deceptive caching.’ This involves a squirrel digging a hole and covering it up again but not depositing a nut. A classic bait-and-switch,” the web page states.
There ya have it, friends.
Photo by Andrey Svistunov on Unsplash
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