Bushy Tail
Spring
Springtime heralds greenery, birdsong, and the emergence of new life. With the pandemic in our rear-view mirror, the suburban wildlife shows all signs of bouncing back. With humans temporarily getting out of their way and not many vehicles to mow them down, this spring has been bountiful with raccoons, squirrels, skunks, opossums, and songbirds. The eastern grey squirrels are especially a familiar sight.
Bushy Tail
A couple of days ago, I noticed a young squirrel foraging in a nearby bush as I approached the porticoed gym entrance. He seemed like he wanted to follow me indoors. Instead of scurrying away, he stood stock-still by the door staring at me with gleaming eyes. I was hesitant to open the door, giving him a chance to get out of my way. But he wouldn’t budge. I might have stood there for all but a second, surmising his odd behavior. Then it happened in a flash. His defender dashed down from the rafters, startling me. She had come to his rescue. I stepped back to let the scene play out. Then it started making sense. The younger one’s back leg was injured. He desperately tried getting on his mother’s back, dragging his injured leg. Try as he might, he couldn’t hang on to her. She wanted to take him back up to the rafters on a vertical column. That wasn’t going to happen, given his size.
They got out of my way. Making my way inside, I remember thinking he was one dead squirrel. Surely his days lay numbered. Minutes later, I watched the replay of the piggyback scene through a large glass pane as I walked the treadmill. He would drag his foot, forage, and fail to find grub in the nearby bushes. Sensing activity, she would scramble back up the rafters, always an eye shot distance. When the coast got clear, they would retry and repeatedly fail.
Sparrow
As a young boy, I had witnessed a sparrow chick trying to fly from a nest perched above a parapet wall. It must have been in the early eighties in India. It fell on the floor and got injured. We lived in a compound with two other families that shared the sublets…
