I work at my City Library, and since we’ve been closed to everything but curbside pickup of requested materials, the squirrels have become friendly. Very friendly…especially this one female we call Black Squirrel.
She’s not actually black (although she looks black from a distance). She’s several gorgeous shades of mahogany. And yes, she is that close. She’s so friendly that she literally will run right up and demand peanuts. Twice, she has sat on my boss’ shoe! She comes right up to the door and presses her hands against the glass until we come out, and then she doesn’t want us to pass by without giving her some attention. And by attention, I mean nuts.
She recognizes which of us likes her, and will feed her. She’s gotten so comfortable with me, that she will take a peanut from my hand, then sit right down beside me to eat it. I took a video, but she was a little skittish, either because of the camera, or because of the fire sirens.
Unfortunately, she has also discovered that the cars that come for curbside pickup also contain people…and these people frequently like her too. She gets lots of treats from them, too, which means she terrifies us regularly by darting under cars and around wheels. We will be very sad if we find a squished Black Squirrel one day. If it weren’t a really, really bad idea to relocate a wild animal, I’d considered live-trapping her and bringing her home to live in my garden with my resident wild squirrel population!
But as I said, bad idea. Speaking of the live trap, though, I did catch something more interesting than a rat the other day.
He might look fierce, but possums are actually quite beneficial in a garden. So I let him go after a took a picture.
Out of Eden 