Backyard Adventures: Squirrel

Yesterday was a sunny, relatively warm day here at the southern edge of Central Illinois.  I was inside for a while after lunch, working at my laptop.  My dog, Tanner, kept nudging me to get my attention.  When I looked at him, he would give me the hairy eyeball then turn his head to look towards the sunlight streaming in the kitchen door.  I could read his mind as clearly as if there was a cartoon thought bubble hanging over his head:  'Person-Who-Feeds-Me, why oh why are we not outside basking in the sun?'


I couldn't think of a valid answer - at least, not one that wouldn't sound ridiculous to a dog.  As Tanner danced around me wagging his tail, I grabbed a book, my sunglasses and a glass of water.  Out we went.


I pulled a cushion onto one of the deck chairs and sat.  Tanner took up his usual position, smack in the middle of a sunny spot on the warm painted boards of the deck.  First I sat with my head back, enjoying the feel of the sun on my skin.  Then I opened the book and tried to read.


It wasn't long before I was distracted by the small adventures playing out around me, and I had to set the book down.  A gray squirrel was traversing the length of the block on his raceway of tree branches.  He moved swiftly, with sure feet, up the thick tree trunks and out onto the ends of the thinnest limbs.  He executed death-defying leaps from one tree to the next, dangling precariously as the limbs - barely strong enough to support his weight - swung and dipped.  On one of his more daredevil landings he flipped upside down at the very tip of a narrow branch.  I thought he was a goner, but he pulled himself upright and kept going.


The squirrel reached the corner of the seven-foot wooden fence that surrounds our back yard on two sides.  He was poised for a quick run up the length of it until he saw Tanner and me on the deck.  He froze in place, nose up, tail at half mast, and watched to see what we would do.  I raised a hand to shade my eyes and watched him back.  Tanner, busy sniffing at a stick lying next to his front paw, was oblivious.  Three minutes ticked by.  The squirrel stayed where he was.  


Two more minutes passed.  Other than a twitch of his tail, the squirrel had not yet moved.  Neither had I.  Sitting so still, I became aware of the world in motion all around us.  Birds flitted about, each twittering in his own distinctive language:  robins and sparrows, mourning doves and house finches, cardinals and crows.  A curious bumblebee did a brief fly-by around my elbow and moved along.  My neighbor across the alley started up his old pickup truck and rumbled off in the direction of Old Route 40.  His boxer puppy, annoyed at being left behind, gave a series of pathetic yelps.  A woodpecker hammered away in another neighbor's tree somewhere off to the south.  Still the squirrel perched on the fence, watching me watch him.


At last he sprang up suddenly, as though he'd been poked.  He came towards me across the top of the fence, but only went about three feet before he paused, reconsidered, and backtracked to the tree from which he'd climbed onto the fence in the first place.  He trundled off, a furry little package of determination, and joined one of his cohorts in the heights of the massive oak tree in the yard next door, which is one of the biggest, oldest trees in town.


As soon as the squirrel was out of sight, my attention was captured by a female cardinal.  She alighted in the small tree at the corner of the deck, about four feet away from me.  Her body was the same brown shade as the branches on the tree, but her sunset-red beak and the dusky red feather on her pointed cap and tail feathers gave her away.  Within a few seconds her mate landed on the fence close by.  He was smaller, and flamboyantly scarlet.  The two birds held a quick conference before flying off in the direction of the Victorian house across the street.


Tanner stretched, yawned, and trotted out to the corner of our yard.  The 40-foot tall remains of another of the biggest, oldest trees in town stands there, draped in ivy vines.  Tanner began a detailed investigation of the layer of detritus at the base of the tree.  Idly, I glanced over at him.  A quick movement in the background caught my eye.


It was my friend the gray squirrel.  He had returned from his junket in the neighboring tree and was making his way across the horizontal slat at the back of the fence.  When he got even with our old tree, his head and front paws popped up over the top of the fence. He was poised and ready to leap over into the tree until he he saw Tanner, who again was oblivious to his proximity.  The squirrel literally slumped down and shook his head.  I imagined how a cartoon thought bubble over his head would read:  'Dangit, would somebody get this blasted dog out of here so I can go on about my business?!'


I laughed.  Tanner looked over at me.  The squirrel took Tanner's distracted state as an opportunity to make his leap.  Five turkey vultures soared in a cartwheel pattern, riding the thermals high above the edge of the block.  The afternoon blazed on.