A few days ago, out of my study window, I was watching a gray squirrel in the top branches of an oak. He was hopping and scampering from branch to branch, eating acorns from the topmost leafless twigs even as a strong, gusty wind shook the tree’s limbs. He moved with that same effortless grace and nonchalance as gulls in a gale, his long tail following him about like a short-term memory or the latent image of a sparkler twirling through the air. His movement was as smooth and sure as herring in a stream. I wondered if squirrels ever miss and fall; at least I’ve never seen one do so.
But like the gulls, the squirrel’s casual demeanor is only an illusion, for when the wind suddenly died and a particularly strong gust rattled the oak’s crown, the squirrel instantly scampered down the branches to the safety of the central trunk. His tail twitched and he looked frightened, though he probably wasn’t, any more than he had been cocky a few moments before. Rather, I suspect, he was just someone who reacted quickly and surely to shifts in his environment, knew his limits precisely and so could exercise them with complete assurance, like the sandpipers that so effortlessly scurry out of the way of an oncoming wave without seeming to look, or even being aware of it.
Yesterday morning I saw three gray squirrels on my study deck. All of them were assiduously licking up water from small puddles which remained from the previous day’s rain. I’d never seen squirrels drink before. Do they need water on a regular basis? I’d never thought about it. Is it a problem for them? Does the availability or lack of fresh water affect their distribution in any significant way? Do the pools that form in the crotches or trunks of dead trees provide an important supply of water for them? What about other common animals in these deciduous woods? We see songbirds, of course, drinking at our bird baths. And somehow we assume that deer and fox, those creatures of long tongues, also regularly drink water. But what about chipmunks, rabbits, raccoons, groundhogs, hawks, or grouse? How do they get water?
Just recently I was talking with my friend Don MacKenzie, who is an astute observer of local wildlife. He told me about watching a gray squirrel running around in his yard the other day, digging up nuts out of the frozen ground. He wondered how the squirrel found the nuts. Then he noticed that wherever the squirrel dug one up, there seemed to be a leaf partially stuck in the ground, on end, above the spot. Was it possible, he wondered, that the squirrel marked the places it buried its nuts? It seemed unlikely, but what do I know? In our conversations we casually talk about DNA, evolution, black holes, subatomic particles, global warming, and other esoteric concepts as though we really knew what we were talking about. Yet the simplest stratagems of even the most common local creatures remain a mystery to us. How does a squirrel find its buried nuts? What forces control the stock market? How does the universe maintain its precarious balance? We must be forever ready to revise our ideas about how things work.
