THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 28, 1996 TAG: 9607260235
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: RANDOM RAMBLES
SOURCE: TONY STEIN
LENGTH: 80 lines
I admit it, nature fans. I have a love-hate relationship with Sciurus carolinensis.
I hear you. You're exclaiming, ``Say what?'' But I am just renewing the smart-aleck license necessary to be a newspaper columnist. Sciurus carolinensis is none other than the eastern gray squirrel. None other than the cute, playful, intelligent, persistent, annoying, ornery, greedy, destructive (check all of the above) critter for whom they surely coined ``bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.''
I am writing about squirrels because I have just added a squirrel feeder to my front yard. Yes, it is fun to watch them flip the feeder lid and happily help themselves to a free lunch. No, it is not fun to watch them gnaw the corner of my new 20-buck feeder to cedar shreds if lunch isn't ready when they are.
Generally, though, squirrels are a hoot, a verdict with which Gary Williamson heartily agrees. Williamson is chief ranger at False Cape State Park, but spent 18 years as a ranger at Chesapeake's Northwest River Park. He's up to here with nature smarts so I asked him to give me a lesson in squirrel life.
Their nests are impressive, he said. Squirrels weave sticks, leaves, grass and ferns into a material that will repel water. In fact, Williamson said his instructor in a survival course told the class to look at a squirrel nest as a model of shelter-building.
Preferred home turf is a gum, oak or maple tree. They mate in spring and summer. Mom is pregnant for five or six weeks and then Pop has to hand out three or four cigars. The kids are no bigger than little mice, blind and helpless. But in about eight weeks, it's ``So long, son. So long, daughter. Write if you get work.''
Williamson told me about the time they had to cut down a tree at Northwest River Park and were dismayed to find a nest with three baby squirrels. But one of the rangers fed the litter with a baby bottle until they got big enough to fend for themselves.
And my high-class, intelligent editor (Hey, don't laugh. He signs my pay slips) Kerry Sipe told me that when he was a kid, the family made a pet of a squirrel they rescued. His name was ``Frisky,'' and he would be hanging out on the porch when the kids came home from school. He stayed around for three years before he disappeared. ``My mother told us he probably found a girlfriend,'' Kerry said.
But right here Williamson had a warning. Wild animals are supposed to be wild. Be wary of a squirrel that lets you get too close, he says. It may be sick. And even just touching it may disrupt the fur and make it lose its protective qualities. Squirrels, Williamson noted, can also be bad news for houses. If they get into your attic they can make an appetizer out of your wiring.
Williamson and I agreed, however, that the right description of a squirrel intent on finding food is ``invincible.'' They will use their native intelligence, their sharp teeth and their deft paws like furry safe-crackers busting a bank vault. The other day, one of them gnawed a hole in my porch screen and chewed the spout off a plastic pitcher to get at the bird seed it held.
Squirrels are very territorial, Williamson said. They protect their turf, whether it is a nest or a food supply. I know that ``share and share alike'' is not the motto framed on any squirrel's wall. When there's food in sight, the big ones chase the little ones off the trees and across the yard. If squirrels made Western movies, they'd all be saying ``This here acorn ain't big enough for you and me, stranger.''
As for ways to keep them off a bird feeder, Williamson contributed one he heard from a garden club lady. Grease the pole with Ponds vanishing cream, the lady said. I wish I had known that when I had a feeder on a pole a few years ago. A squirrel ate right through the roof, climbed inside and wallowed in the seed like a kid head-first in the cookie jar.
I wondered about the name ``Sciurus'' and my encyclopedia told me it meant ``shadetail'' because squirrels shade themselves from the sun with their tails. The tail doubles as blanket, triples as a signaling device and quadruples as a kind of parachute to slow them coming down.
The ``carolinensis'' in the name comes, I guess, from their abundance in North Carolina. Of course, when they get smart, they move to Virginia. And the encyclopedia said there are squirrels on every continent except Australia and Antarctica.
But the encyclopedia goofed. What people think are penguins in Antarctica are actually squirrels wearing tuxedos. The squirrels didn't want me to tell you that because they rented the tuxedos and don't want to pay for them. by CNB