I'm not overly fond of grey squirrels. Compared to the reds, which the greys have replaced, they are great lumbering brutes.
I'm not overly fond of grey squirrels. Compared to the reds, which the greys have replaced, they are great lumbering brutes. But I suppose I'm lucky that they do little damage in my garden other than digging up a few tulip bulbs, so I can appreciate their dextrous acrobatics and smile at their bobbity-skip gait without wanting to take a pop at them too often.
Despite the cats, at least one squirrel regularly comes right up to our back door to have a sniff around. It will now be encouraged even more after we flung a few nuts out through the cat flap at it. It greedily ate the first couple, then buried some, then came back for another chew.
I wonder if this is the same one that I've seen visiting our neighbours. Their kitchen is on the first floor and I've noticed one on several occasions exploring the windowsills up there. While they were away on holiday a short time back, we fed their cats, their hamsters and their fish. There was also a note on the kitchen surface asking us to leave out the odd nut or two on the sills for the half-tame squirrel. We duly obliged.
On their return we got to chatting about gardens and wildlife, what the swifts were up to, how many stag beetles had come flying over. When talk turned to the half-tame squirrel I was told, very authoritatively I thought, that she had babies somewhere. I wondered how they knew.
I'm still thinking about the answer I got. I can't decide whether it was some west-country expression I'd never come across, or perhaps a veterinary turn of phrase. Or was it just direct plain speaking? Apparently you could see quite clearly, as she walked along past the windows, all her nipples were up.
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