THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 2, 1996 TAG: 9601310202
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Over Easy
SOURCE: Jo-Ann Clegg
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines
Every morning I open the family room drapes, sit back with a cup of coffee and the morning paper, check the scene outside the window and wonder. About squirrels.
Why, I ask myself, does nobody ever study the habits of the little guys with the sharp claws, bushy tails and incredible agility?
Thousands of people spend their hard-earned cash on courses that teach them how to tell the difference between yellow-bellied sapsuckers and red-tailed hawks. Or is it red-tailed sapsuckers and yellow-bellied hawks? I used to know those things. Then I married Bill, who classifies all birds into three categories: little, red and none of the above.
I quickly joined him in his ignorance of the subject, knowing that I could always call on someone else if I had any need for quick identification.
Here in these parts people rush to study dolphins, which is kind of like studying peas in a pod. Or would be if peas spent their days leaping over waves or scaring the living daylights out of tourists who can't tell the difference between Flipper and Jaws.
Other locals don't consider their winters complete until they've ridden a pitching boat into the teeth of a nor'easter to see if there are any whales hanging around the offshore shipping lanes.
If Willy ever tires of his new digs in that fancy water park on the West Coast, he could probably secure his retirement by promising to shoot off his blow hole every time one of those tour boats approached. In between, he'd be free to hunt plankton or sardines or whatever it is he considers to be a gourmet meal.
Even seagulls, they of the unpleasant voice and the messy bathroom habits, have their following. Jonathan Livingston had one of the biggest-selling books of the 20th century written about him. One of his unnamed cousins has the biggest following of any bird in history.
Literally.
``Follow the gull to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel,'' proclaim blue signs with the outline of a white gull on every coastal road from New Jersey to Georgia. Millions of drivers do just that each year.
Those who follow real gulls instead end up next to restaurant dumpsters in parking lots from Savannah to Camden, many of them in Virginia Beach.
Getting back to squirrels, which are the real subject of this meandering offering, I don't know of a single group that studies, watches or supports them.
Frankly, I can't understand the lack of interest. They're no more numerous than birds, a lot nicer than gulls (but then so are pit bulls and pythons), faster than whales and less predictable than dolphins.
I've been trying to remedy that situation by some serious study of the ones in my back yard. So far, I've come to some interesting conclusions.
First, there is no bird feeder they can't penetrate.
That's OK with me, since I've instructed my own backyard birds to share.
Second, there's no branch so thin that they're convinced it can't hold them.
That, too, is OK with me. I figure any branch that will break under the weight of a squirrel, even one who's just polished off a 5-pound bag of bird seed, is probably going to come down in the next big wind anyway.
And, third, all squirrels head east.
I base that last conclusion on the fact that every morning I watch as at least a score of them scurry across the power lines that run through my back yard, heading into the sun.
For years, I've watched this phenomena.
For years, I've wondered where they're going. And why. And how come I never see them return.
I assume they use the power lines as a safe way to get across nearby Kempsville Road. But then what?
Oceana Naval Air Station is due east of our house. Do these little critters hold some kind of top secret job, testing jet engines or riding around in F-14s all day? Are squirrels one of the secret weapons that helped end the Cold War?
And then there is the matter of the one-way nature of their travel. What do they do when the day is over?
I can't imagine that the same government that goes to such great lengths to protect such things as snail darters (whatever they may be) considers 20 squirrels each day to be expendable.
Perhaps the explanation is simpler than that. Perhaps our power line is marked one way eastbound while one that runs through someone else's back yard has a westbound arrow.
Perhaps someone will offer a course on squirrels some day, one that I can take to find out what goes on in their flat little heads. Then, again, maybe it would be better if I applied for a government research grant and found the answer for myself.
Unless, of course, someone already has done that but hasn't gotten around to publishing the results. by CNB