Mrs White Ears

I hope this picture comes out - or maybe I should say these pictures... If you are a regular reader of my Sunday letter, you have heard of White Ears. We have had a squirrel (perhaps more than one but only one at a time) with white ears. I have no idea why I always called it a boy, but I have now seen its belly - she is a momma!

As you can see, she is also a thief! I realize this is not a good shot, but it was a telephoto and thru the kitchen window and storm window. What can I say? If I had opened the back door, she would have been history, so the window was the only choice. The feeder is about 50 feet from the house.

OK, that seemed to work, sort of. Let me try a better picture.

This is definitely a better shot tho not as amusing. I know, I fuss about the squirrels getting into the bird feeders, but the truth is, I dearly love squirrels. When I was a little kid, Grandpop taught me to sit real still and coax the squirrels to come up and eat peanuts out of my hand. Sometimes he would put a big glob of peanut butter on a little piece of bread, set it on his shoulder and the squirrels would run up his arm, snatch the peanut butter bread and run. Eventually they became so tame they would sit and eat the peanut butter off the bread while sitting on his shoulder. It took me a long time to be able to sit still long enough for the squirrels to learn to trust me as they did Grandpop.

Another truth, the feeder in the first picture is primarily for the large birds, but I usually put it where the squirrels can jump onto it. I bought them a feeder of their own that I put up on one of the trees, but when they had eaten all the food out of it, they then began to chew the feeder apart. Eventually it was beyond repair.

The first baby squirrel I ever took care of at the Wildlife Center I named Whiskers. Baby squirrels are born naked except for these adorable long whiskers. Yes, even their tails are naked. Their skin is so transparent, when you feed them, you can see when they are full. They have little white bellies showing thru their skin. They are so precious. I used to carry Whiskers around in my shirt pocket while I fed the other critters. I have since read that frequent touching type stimulation makes the little animals smarter, it activates more brain cells. Well, Whiskers must have been one smart squirrel, 'cause she got plenty of touching from me! I was so excited when she finally opened her eyes. I was the first thing she saw! I cried when she was released and worried myself silly. But she did all right.