Sciurus carolinensis capers

No squirrels were harmed in the production of this blog. In fact, as you can see from the photographs taken from our lounge window, we treat the little blighters rather well.

Any bird lover who attempts to feed his feathered friends will tell you that squirrels are very smart, too smart. Squirrels will always find the food and they will always find a way into the feeder. 

Bird lovers hang their feeder off tree limbs. Squirrels find a way to slide, leap or climb their way into that feeder.
 
Bird lovers set feeders on poles far from a tree. Squirrels climb the pole with ease. 

Bird lovers grease the pole. Squirrels climb the pole with ease.
 
Bird lovers put barriers on the poles. Squirrels laugh at the barriers. 
 
Bird lovers put barriers that slip, slide or tip when touched by a squirrel. Squirrels figure it out on the second or third attempt.

Bird lovers put their feeders in metal cages. Squirrels use wire cutters.

Bird lovers connect their feeders to the mains electricity supply. Squirrels wear rubber gloves.

Eventually most bird lovers grudgingly become squirrel appreciators or, at least, squirrel tolerators. Their skills, their tenacity, their acrobatics become part of the bird watching experience. Every bird watcher will tell you that squirrels are very smart. Then why, I ask, if they are that smart, why can’t they learn to cross a road?

I almost ran over a squirrel the other day as he scampered across the road right in front of me. Following what seems to be the standard squirrel protocol for these matters, he waited to cross until I was in his range and then shot out. He could have made it too but he stopped dead waiting.....to be stopped dead. But I was ready for him, I braked and disaster was averted. To come back to my question: how is it that a creature can be so clever, so inventive, and so skillfully able to circumvent every obstacle imaginable to find his way to an easy meal, yet he is unable to cross a road?

The squirrel has adapted to finding food over millions of years; in fact his survival demands that he be good at doing this. The car and roads are pretty new on the evolutionary scale and, except for the last hundred years or so, the ability to cross a road has not been much of a factor in the survival of the squirrel species. And, from the many carcasses I see along the road, squirrels are not particularly fast learners. Fortunately for them many of their other natural predators, particularly in rural heavily road traveled areas, have been decimated, so the car is probably now the squirrel's main enemy.  Perhaps after a few more decades of evolution squirrels will learn that the best way to avoid their new enemy is to scamper like hell, not stop and freeze. Stop and freeze helps them escape from their traditional predators as it puts them in a position to dart in a different direction to avoid capture. But it is a pretty dumb defense against several thousand kilogrammes of fast moving metal. Until new instincts are developed through the survival of the fittest process, it is incumbent on we squirrel lovers to be prepared for them to do stupid things.

What's the point I am trying to make?  None whatsoever, other than drive carefully around country lanes as you never know what or who you will meet, maybe me or mine. I just got wrapped up in the moment and kept tapping away. Does every post have to have a point? If you think it has, you are in the wrong place.