The squirrel highway at sunset.
It was 7 degrees (F) when first I checked. Bright sun streaming over the bay. And it remained sunny—brilliantly so—all day. And the forecasts I’ve seen suggest we shouldn’t hope for even a bare trace of snow. But I’m not really surprised. Every winter has its own character around here: snowy, or warm, or dry. The temperature warmed into the 20s today, and with only a feeble wind-chill.
Work kept me inside, but I saw and heard the crows. One phrase they’ve got—a five-beat call with the middle caw omitted (caw-caw, pause, caw-caw)—I hear more than any other. I sure wish I knew the magic code.
I did step out onto the deck after lunch. The air tasted brisk, refreshing. I heard chickadees in the trees to the north, and the bright, wheezy call of a titmouse echoed up the hill for a little while. I couldn’t see the titmouse, but I did see a pair of gray squirrels. I caught sight of them high in the farthest oaks about seventy-five yards up the slope. They were making a swift approach, one maybe five seconds ahead of the other, scrambling along the branches, leaping from limb to limb and tree to tree.
Hole in the oak.
I’ve watched this routine often, this mad dash along the squirrel highway. I wonder how their lanes are marked—some scent? squirrel memory?—because they seem always to stick to the same route. Unless, of course, there’s some fight or distraction and they begin revolving around oak trunks or slipping off twigs and branches. One fall I saw a squirrel lose its footing completely and drop like a stone through the great empty space between oak’s highest limbs to the leaf-covered ground. It made a crash, and I spotted it later looking stunned and even limping a little.
Today’s high-wire act took only thirty or forty seconds, as the pair flew through the crowns of four oaks and a maple, finally ending up in the largest red oak out there—the one I worry might topple onto the roof on stormy nights. There’s an ancient hole up there. One after the other they dove in, and I imagined them tangled together against the cold.
Today’s List
1. American crow
2. Black-capped chickadee
3. Tufted titmouse
Tags: American crow, black-capped chickadee, gray squirrel, tufted titmouse
