Photoshoot: Boris and Natasha

In my last post, I introduced the flying squirrels who visit my bird feeders. Boris and Natasha have been visiting the peanut butter buffet every night, and are becoming a little less camera shy. Here are a few pictures from our most recent photo shoot.

The feeder is a double decker, but sometimes the little critters have trouble sharing. There was an awful lot of squeaking and skittering and leaping and flitting, which made it a tad difficult to get both squirrels in one picture, but I did manage to snap a few.

Perhaps the paparazzi were too much for Natasha. Hiding her face, she turns away, giving us a good look at her white washcloth belly, so useful for gliding.

 

When I originally discovered Boris, he was nibbling from the suet feeder. I still spread a little Skippy on it every night and he often stops by there for a snack.

 

A full bowl of food; what a great way to start the evening.

Peanut butter is just so good that you might as well get in the bowl with it to make sure you scrape out every last bit.

 

Hopefully Boris and Natasha will continue to visit. I'll share pictures when I can.  My hope is catch one of them in flight!

Gliding in the Night

As I write, I’m trying to feel the warmth of the summer evening when I first encountered my squirrelly little friends. 

I always carry a flashlight when we head outside for our last excursion of the day, mostly because Lilah, the obsidian-furred Stealth Dog, disappears in the dark.  This particular night in the summer of 2010, as I walked past the tree where I keep the suet feeder, I heard a scrabbly noise, like something scratching at the bark. Without taking time to think, I swung my flashlight in the direction of the sound and saw a tiny creature sitting on my suet feeder. 

It was the size of a chipmunk, with a chipmunk-sized tail, but it had graybrown fur. It's large dark eyes seemed to take up an inordinate portion of its head. Startled, the little animal scrambled up the trunk and disappeared into a crook between two branches.

What was that? I quickly ran through a list of possibilities.

Squirrel? No, too small. And squirrels are creatures of the day.

Chipmunk? Nope. No stripes. And the eyes were way too big.

Those huge eyes offered a clue; whatever I saw was nocturnal. A furry nocturnal something. So I did the obvious: ran inside, fired up the MacBook and Googled “New Jersey nocturnal mammal.”

The result? Flying squirrel. Sounds possible. So let’s try a Google image search. Oh. My. Gosh. That’s him!  Or her!

Most specifically, my visitor was a southern flying squirrel or Glaucomys volans. They live in deciduous and mixed forests throughout the eastern U.S., bunking down during the day in nests made in holes in dead trees, called snags. And it turns out, in addition to suet, they like peanut butter.

Naturally, the next day, at dusk, I slathered a glob of Skippy onto my suet feeder. That night, when I came outside with the dogs, I heard that scratchy, scrabbly noise, and there the creature was, chowing down on the brownish goo. 

My new friend didn’t seem to care when I shone the flashlight on him, and Jasper and Lilah were busy chasing Sniffs in the night, so I stood there and watched him for awhile. Of course, prior to this, the only flying squirrel I had ever come close to (if one could call watching Saturday morning cartoons “close”), was Bullwinkle the moose’s best friend Rocky. It felt too easy to name my new acquaintance Rocky, so instead I decided to name him after Rocky and Bullwinkle’s arch nemesis: the Russian spy Boris.

Boris came every night after that. And within a week, there was a second squirrel. Of course, she had to be Natasha (Boris’ femme fatale partner). I took to calling out their names and making a clicking noise when I brought out the peanut butter in the evenings, thinking they might hear me and associate the sounds I was making with the peanutty smorgasbord I was setting out. Did I sound foolish? Perhaps, but my neighbors’ homes aren’t that close and I didn’t really care.

But here’s the thing; the squirrels did learn to recognize my call. Fast. And soon, I would go outside, call out, "Boris! Natasha!," click a few times...and suddenly they’d appear at the top of the tree. They had to have glided there but I didn’t hear them, and didn’t see it happen. They flew so quietly.

However, they weren't completely silent; when they weren’t floating through the air, Boris and Natasha called out in tiny voices that I could just barely hear. They made high-pitched little squeaks, chittering batlike noises that seemed to come from all over the yard. And, then one night when I was simply standing there watching them and grooving on the concept of flying squirrels simply existing, let alone eating from feeders in my yard, a shadow swooped over my head and landed with a little up-curve on the trunk. I saw it glide!  

And what's this...there are three?  No wait, there’s another one. Four? Five? 

Throughout the summer, they came. My husband and children and I would head outside at dusk; I’d call out for Boris and Natasha, clicking as I spread the peanut butter on the suet feeder--and in a new feeder I put on the tree specially for the squirrels and their friends and family. They’d glide soundlessly over our heads and flit from branch to branch on my split-trunk tree. In flight, they looked like square furry washcloths, with tiny paws at each corner, a head centered on one edge and a tail in the middle of the opposite side. The creatures pinballed back and forth among the tree limbs. Friends would stop by to see the show. At a family reunion (human, that is: my relatives), an entourage of cousins watched in awe as I called the creatures and they came swooping in to eat and play.

Every night I put out peanut butter and made sure the suet feeder was full. However, as fall approached and the nights got colder, there were fewer squirrels.  And then they simply stopped coming. For a while I thought perhaps they hibernated, but apparently, these guys don’t go in for the long sleep. I worried that something happened to them; often I’d hear the call of a screech owl at night and hope that southern flying squirrel wasn’t on the dinner menu.

Eventually, I stopped putting out food.  I figured I had my once-in-a-lifetime encounter with these unique animals. I felt incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to watch them glide and soar in the nighttime sky.

And then, a few nights ago, I was outside with the dogs, and I heard the familiar scrabbling sound. My flashlight revealed a tiny furry creature with big eyes sitting on the suet feeder. 

Welcome back, Boris. Time to buy the economy jar of Skippy.

Boris eating from the peanut butter feeder.

Fire and Ice

The day began with freezing rain that fell upon thimble-height snow. 

As light filtered through the clouds, branches became slick and shiny.  The trees in the woods behind our house were clearwhite limned, giving the forest a chilled, yet delicate air.

Ice-coated limbs bent sadly with the weight of their cold burden.

Encased leaves, sticks and buds seemed unapproachable, yet fascinating.

Frozen water drew new patterns on rails,

fences,

siding.

Astilbe, forgotten since the fall, became a miniature landscape of ice-covered blooms.

Clear-coated mountain laurel offered up new colors and patterns.

As warmth seeped in between the raindrops, half cylinders of ice, molded from the branches, loosened, and landed in piles of shards. 

Twigs and larger branches whose strength was tested but fell short, lay scattered beneath trees that began to stand taller as they shed their icy skin.

Later in the day, the soft sound of rain was interspersed with harsher sounds of limbs breaking, ice shattering, branches crashing onto the coated snow. Hollow pops and sharp reports, brittle clanks and tinny clangs resounded as more ice fell from the trees above.

A mist grew up from the ground, as the sun appeared low in the sky, masked by the fog, yet providing a fiery orange glow to the landscape.

As night fell, most of the ice had gone, with the setting sun illuminating the last of coated branches.

Athena and her Precious

“It’s my precioussssss.”  
I can almost hear Athena channeling Gollum from Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings books. It haunts her, this precious item; she desires it greatly.

The Precious?
It’s a hair tie...an elastic hair band. The coated kind. Thick. A garden-variety, 10 for 99 cents, put-your-hair-up-in-a-ponytail stretchy circle.

And it’s very, Very Important to Athena.

She stands guard outside my bedroom and bolts into the room when I open the door, making a beeline for my grandmother’s antique dressing table. She jumps up and peers into a cobalt blue vase, looking for The Precious. 

 

Sometimes, I will have put it in the vase ahead of time. More often, the vase is empty. Then Athena will wait patiently--in case somehow The Precious will magically appear. She’s very good at waiting, Miss Athena is. Patient. Waiting. 

 

Patiently waiting.

 

Ever so so patient.
If she’s Really Very Patient, I will open the Drawer of Magical Items and quickly pull out The Precious and drop it into the vase.

 

Athena will stare into the vase to confirm that The Precious is, indeed, within and then, delicately reaching her paw inside, she’ll pull it up toward her, usually snagging it with one claw. When she gets it high enough, Athena transfers the Hair Band of Joy to her mouth--and then has to stop and think about next steps.

First she surveys the area. Dawn, Jasper or Lilah might be around. They. Might. Steal. The. Precious. And that would be A Very Bad Thing.

If the coast is clear, Athena hops off the dressing table. And the real fun begins.

This is what you do with The Precious. First, you hold in in your mouth, then you toss it back and forth between your paws. 
Then you put it in Mom’s shoe. That’s real important. Because two seconds later, you take it out of Mom’s shoe. And then place it back in again. 

You can also consider bringing The Precious with you on to the blanket chest.  Then you hockey puck it around the slippery wood surface. 

Sometimes you try to hide it under the magazines. Hiding The Precious under the magazines is good, but not as good as depositing it in Mom’s shoe. But it’s still considered to be among the appropriate activities to do with The Precious.

You might also bring it downstairs and play with it under the kitchen table. Or on the dining room rug. But you have to be careful because there are foul elements afoot who will try to take The Precious from you.

Jasper. 

Lilah.

Oh, and if Lilah gets hold of The Precious, it is a very sad course of events indeed. Lilah excels at Shredding. No item is too small to escape the Lilahnator: a bit of fluff, a leaf, a tiny plastic end from a price tag on a pair of pants. A hair band.

Oh the felinity!

Until next time, when Athena takes up her position on Grandma’s dressing table  and waits ever so patiently yet again for The Return of the Precious.

What the Snow Reveals

A walk around our property gives me a peek into the lives of the other residents with whom we share our outdoor space. Their stories are written in the snow, but I’m only slightly familiar with the language, and thus can only guess at the authors and their meaning.

Walk with me:


My dogs have provided some insight; their tracks offer clues to figuring out other trails that I encounter. Lilah of the short legs can only leap through the snow, leaving sproing prints in her path. Depth doesn't matter to Lilah; it barely slows her down.

Jasper joins in, following Lilah. His long moose legs drag though the drifts, even when he's running.  A smart (and admittedly lazy) boy, Jasper will run in Lilah's path, so he doesn't have to work quite as hard.

A walk in the woods behind my house uncovers evidence that the foxes have returned to den here. With legs shorter than Lilah's, a fox bounds through the snow as well, leaping over logs, searching for food.

When the snow is not quite as deep, foxes leave more doglike prints. Here, a fox is using one of our makeshift bridges to cross a creek.

Up close, it's easier to see the fox paw impressions.

Squirrels make it easy to read their trails; their large hind paws and tiny handlike forepaws are an open book, particularly when the trail leads to or from a large tree trunk. The squirrels stay busy in the winter, proving to me that they actually do look for dinner in places other than my convenient squirrel--oops, I mean bird--feeders.

Deer, with long legs like Jasper, drag their feet through the snow; about a half-dozen of them have created a trail among the trees.

A tiny creek poses little challenge to Bambi and his friends, who leap over fences and across brooks with ease. Surefooted, the deer show no signs of slipping and sliding on either bank. It's not much of a challenge for the mind's eye to recreate the balletic grace of the animals--almost riding the air from one side to the other.

Up close, a deer print is somewhat obvious, as it is the only hoofed creature that lives in the neighborhood.

The deer in our woods are more numerous than squirrels; only a day after a fresh snowfall, there are so many overlapping trails that it's a bit of a challenge to try to figure out who went where, when, and with whom.

Of course, my walk through the woods also leaves a trail; perhaps snow shoes would have made the jaunt a tad less of a slog.

By my patio, where my dozen or so birdfeeders hang, I can tell the ground feeding birds have been very busy, hopping about and scratching through the snow for the seed I've scattered.

 

The heated bird bath (what bird wouldn't want a hot tub in the winter?) gives everyone a taste of fresh water to wash down the sunflower and thistle seeds, millet, suet and peanut butter offered in the daily buffet.

In the front yard, I was a little puzzled by a tiny trail of prints that travel lightly over my perennials. Like the elf Legolas (see Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein) who could walk on top of the snow, the maker of these tracks travels on gentle feet.  It is probably one of my neighbor's cats, who are known to prowl through my landscaping.

 

Below you can barely see the prints weaving through the plants toward the back.

Sometimes I can only guess at the writer of the glyphs in the snow.  A bird? A mouse? 

And Jasper and Lilah add their own chapters to the snow stories. Below is a tale of two friends playing; with a squint and a little imagination, I see a heart drawn with paws.

The stories unfold in front of me, and then disappear underneath a new blanket of fresh snow, or melt away in the sun. A moment in time for our local residents is captured and revealed for me to guess an interpretation: a simple gift of the winter.