That loud collective sigh of relieve you just heard was a result of finally getting through all the hard work that goes into putting on our annual Halloween party. Probably logged less than 8 hours of sleep during the last three days. Thanks for both my brothers and numerous friends from work .. .and of course Linda, we managed to get it all pulled together in the nick of time. Once again, I broke my promise to Linda and failed to get everything set up on the haunted trail before guests started arriving. Luckily everyone chipped in to finish getting all the batteries loaded and a few tweaks to the linkages on some of this year’s new creations. Everything went well until the last guests departed and then the skies let loose with a steady shower for the rest of the night. Will take some time getting everything dried out and stored away for next year. With the party worry over, I can focus on the next crisis…
pissed off squirrels!! No, just kidding, Squirrels are too cute to be pissed off. Honestly, have you ever seen an angry Squirrel? Every time I see them they are busy chasing each other around the backyard or wandering around digging holes in random spots trying to remember where they left their prize nut. My pressing crisis is the fact it is the end of the month (Ron’s birthday as a matter of fact) and I’m short on my personal blogging quota. That is why I’m at the keyboard at the moment and not dreaming about sugarplum fairies or next year’s Halloween props.
As a change of pace, thought it would be fun to feature something with fur instead of feathers. These first shot comes to you courtesy of a birding trip to Kentucky back in April 2015. Unfortunately, I am not up on all my Squirrel species. Thanks to growing up in the Heart of Illinois, I spent much of my years up until college thinking there was just one type of Squirrel. That would be the Eastern Grey Squirrel. When I started branching out into the world, I noticed there are actually more than one species, yet all cute as can be. The shot above came from Starved Rock and based on my untrained eye, looks to be the same Eastern Gray variety.
Hit he jump to see a couple more varieties captured on our birding escapades.
Next up is one from Minnesota back in July of 2017. My apologies, but I am unable to remember exactly where this was taken. That may be the vast amounts of alcohol consumed tonight once the decorations were successfully deployed hehehehe. This one has a scrawnier tail than the other Grays above it and what looks to be a bit more brown. Regardless, this likely female was raiding someone’s bird feeder. Nimble little critters – took me a long time to figure out a bird feeder system that they were unable to breach. Likely just a matter of time before one figures out it can find a long sturdy stick and pole vault over my barriers – when that happens, they won’t be so cute anymore!
I also found this Red Squirrel (my educated guess at the moment) on the same trip to Minnesota. No idea if they have Red Squirrels in Minnesota, but this sure looks red to me. Did I mentions Red Squirrels have a special power that makes your camera sensors distort and pixelate. This happened on the shot above and the shot below which happened to be taken at Biltmore Estates in North Carolina back in July 2014 – amazing.
… hold a second, Linda is making a comment from the other room. Sorry, Linda has informed me that Red Squirrels do not have any special camera distortion powers and that, in fact, is totally due to my poor execution. Is there any harsher critics than a spouse – me thinks not. Not exactly the most trusting one, I did do so quick checks and was unable to find a solid reference on this special ability and came up empty. Oh well, it was worth a try.
Thought I would leave you with a quick shot of my favorite squirrel species, the Black Squirrel. There were a few of these around Champaign-Urbana when I was going to school there,, but I really didn’t notice them much until I started hanging in Davenport Iowa. These Squirrels are cool and they know it. They are rarely seen without their cheap black sunglasses… what!?! – okay, Linda has dispelled that rumor as well. I think it’s time for bed. Have a good one everyone – see ya again real soon now!
Wildlife Intrigued 
Sorry Brian not my favorite of animals, in fact fair to say I detest them. The grey squirrel was introduced to the UK back in the 1800’s, it brought with it squirrel pox, this along with it’s larger size and aggressive behaviour decimated our native red squirrel (which really IS cute). The red can now only be found in northern Scotland and isolated populations on islands like Anglesey off north Wales. The grey will also destroy nesting birds eating eggs and young, kill trees, dig up bulbs in the garden and if you get one in the loft of your house (like my brother did) strip your electrics. Apart from that great images. Rant over.
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Sounds like your opinion lines up with my opinion of those demon spawn moles. My brother Ron can tell you all about my anger directed at those damn things. I can see where these Squirrels could be a total nuisance especially if it impacted those cute Red ones. My guess is the ones around here do not have enough spare time to get too devious thanks to having to look over their shoulders for all the coyotes in their kill parties (we have to manage the coyote population out here in the country or there wouldn’t be any small wildlife … not to mention the threat to our small poodles). Thanks for stopping by and my apologies for my delay in response.
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The trouble was the grey’s were introduced by the Victorians who had no idea the what the effect would be on native flora and fauna, they also introduced invasive plants and other animals which are now out of control. The only predator the grey squirrel has is the Goshawk which is pretty damn rare! And yes I have mole problems too, by the time I trap them the garden is a right mess!
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Those little red MN squirrels can get pissed off. I have been the angst of a few as I has stepped into their territory while hiking through the woods. Maybe I make them even more pissed off as I laugh at them going around and around the tree showing me their very small teeth and chirping to scare me away. They are cute! I have only seen the black ones in MN around William OBrien State Park. I also think there are two types of grey squirrels in MN a small sort like the red one you captured and the large grey ones that seem to like any bird feeder as a challenge (even the rated anti squirrels bird feeders).
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I finally made my own bird feeders out of PVC that has kept the squirrels at bay so far – I’m sure they are evolving every day and pretty soon will be repelling off trees to circumvent my deterrents. Sounds like I need to check out that State Park – we did a trip up to MN a couple of years back and was looking for places to visit – if they have black squirrels we’re there. Thanks for dropping by and as I mentioned to Brian, my sincere apologies for the delay in response.
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No worries. My view numbers the last two days were elevated due to 2 people catching up and commenting on my posts and it is nice to see someone actually reads these blogs and gets something out of them. You guys really should check out that MN state park. I will be stopping there the first weekend in Nov on my way to a canoe conference in Charleston SC. If I see that black squirrels I capture it and send it your way. 😂
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What about the white squirrels at the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina? I hope I have that location correct. I know you have pictures of those. Maybe you have pics of those in an earlier post. Or maybe, and this is a distinct possibility, I’m imagining them.
Ron
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Shhhhhhhh, I didn’t bring up the super rare white (not albino) squirrels we tracked down in North Carolina a few years ago. I still need to process those up and get them ready to post. Those squirrels are by far my favorite ones and big thanks to Linda’s relative who told us where they were. Note, they were not actually at Biltmore, but we did visit there on both our visits out there – we really like their wines! Hey, maybe we just thought they were white after a day of sampling wines there hehehehe.
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