Serendipity Squirrel

In our last episode, Ursine Orson Welles had decided that we needed a change of scene, and turned the camera and its post by 90 degrees. This left it facing a pointblank slope under an oak, with seemingly nothing to see but miner's lettuce and old acorns...


The black bear's set selection

But soon after, with a touch of the luck of the sow's-ear serendipity of Codger's crazy barn dance, the camera captured this charming sequence:


Have acorn will travel...


Dig, dig, dig...


Tamp, tamp, tamp...


And off for the next one


4 minutes later... "Hold it - did that thing see me?"


Better just eat it

With all of the prolific canyon live oaks, this isn't a surprise species, of course. And, it appears, another species once harvested acorns here:


Acorn grinder in nearby granite boulder - complete with fox poop

Now, I'm sure many of you might be saying: "but, it's just a squirrel..."

Well, I like squirrels. Especially western grays, Sciurus griseus, which seem to be losing the species collision war in California. Introduced eastern gray squirrels, Sciurus carolinensis, are taking over. On the peninsula of the SF Bay Area where I live, they already control the 'burbs, parks and rurals east of hwy 280.

Don't get me wrong - the smaller, browner easterns are a nice squirrel and all, but I'd surely miss the big, dashing, silver-white and bushy-tailed westerns.

They're a character of California.

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References:

• The Nature of a Man (this blog) - Under the Live Oaks
• Camera Trap Codger - Barny moves on
• The Nature of a Man (this blog) - posts on the Tehachapis 

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