Friday, February 25, 2005
ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE
I'm sure I've mentioned before how much I enjoy the birds at the feeder in the backyard. Along with birds invariably come squirrels with theft in mind. We have squirrelproofed the feeders, but there is always feed on the ground, and we have quite a healthy squirrel population in the neighborhood. One day I counted 14 under the feeder at once. Naturally they were not getting along.
Years ago I was able to tame a squirrel. He even had a name--Jackson. (Don't ask me why. I didn't have a reason.) Jackson would watch for me to come out and come running when I did because I always had peanuts for him. If I remained standing, he would crawl up my pantleg to take the peanut out of my hand. If I sat down on the ground he would prop himself up on my knee to get the peanut. I was never able to pet him, but he was still fun.
I've decided to try to tame another one since my favorite neighborhood cat moved away, so have been tossing peanuts out to the squirrels regularly. Today as we were eating dinner, we watched one squirrel pick up a peanut from under the feeders, bring it up onto the deck, and bury it in the snow. He repeated this numerous times. The snow is melting as I write this. I wonder if he had planned those peanuts for an evening snack? In any case, they are going to be some squirrel's evening snack when the snow is gone.
