The new York Times posted this book review of animal behaviorist Jonathan Balcombe’s recent book on animal pleasure: “The Exultant Ark”.
It is accompanied by a charming photo-gallery of various animals playing and enjoying themselves, which notably for us squirrel aficionados contains this cute image of a squirrel warming itself.
Gracie doesn’t visit us as often as she did during the colder months so it’s always kind of comforting when she does drop by after not being sighted for a week or so.
Here she is in her trim summer coat. It’s a lot thinner than her winter coat was which makes her look much smaller.
Wild grey squirrels are not thought to be very social animals. The most frequent squirrel interactions that the casual observer will see is agonistic behaviour: in other words chasing each other off and fighting.
But if you observe squirrels for long enough you’ll begin to notice some social ties.
For example here we have a picture of Lucy lazing around on a hot summer day and cuddling next to her baby Inky.
Of course as soon as food is involved all bets are off and Lucy will be just as vicious in chasing her own baby away as she would be with any other squirrel.
But outside of that situation, the two seem to maintain an attachment and to enjoy spending time together. We have even noticed them grooming each other from time to time, though regrettably we don’t have a picture of that yet.
We have also noted that siblings or even nest-mates sometimes remain on friendly terms as well in this article about two squirrels playing.
Last year we had a squirrel that suffered from severe brain injury, probably caused by raccoon roundworm, that we called ‘Wobbly Squirrel.’ As a result of his brain injury he had severe balance problems, and drooled constantly.
The brain injury also made him a particularly grouchy squirrel. He wouldn’t tolerate any other squirrel near him when he was feeding.
Because of this we were really surprised, one time last fall, to see Wobbly and another male squirrel playing and roughhousing on the fence presumably passing the time while waiting for food.
CNN did a story back in March about these two baby fox squirrels that survived a wildfire in Harrah, OK by hiding in the trunk of a tree.
The fire was so intense their whiskers were burnt off. There was no sign of the mother.
Since they looked fine as five week old pups in the hands of the rehabber back in March, I think it’s safe to say they are probably released and out on their own by now.
