We live in the woods, and partly because our property is contiguous with other large wooded areas, we have diverse wildlife. It is endlessly fascinating. I spend more time looking out at the activities beyond our windows than I do watching television.

But I’ve never really paid much attention to squirrels. We have approximately eleven million gray squirrels, and a rapidly increasing population of red squirrels, whose aggressive habits chase other mammals from the territory, and cause destruction to human property. You can hear them scold if you dare to walk beneath any of their trees. They are smaller than gray squirrels, but they box above their weight. All together, squirrels are the most common animals on our property, and I take them for granted. They are not mysterious and fascinating like raccoons or possums; or innocently beautiful, like deer; or showy and cantankerous like turkeys. They’re just squirrels. Always there. Always busy. Almost always solitary except during mating season. Not particularly interesting.

And yet, I recently learned that squirrel intelligence is superior to that of dogs, and this has given me a lot to think about. It certainly explains how in the dog vs. squirrel chase category, squirrels are definitely winning.

Anyway, this is not meant to be a treatise about squirrel species. It is the observation of—if not friendship—camaraderie—and, perhaps, of something more important.

I first saw a pair of gray squirrels running together in the summer months. At the time—and without paying close attention—I marveled over How. Many. Squirrels we had this year. It was like a squirrel invasion. (A circumstance due, probably, to the sudden diminution of the coyote population.) Every morning, they were running together, one after the other: racing across the lawn, spiraling up trees, and looking, to my wandering and inattentive gaze, as if they were either rivals or a mating pair. I didn’t think about them, or pay particular attention. But they were always there.

Only recently did it suddenly occur to me that they were still always there, and it wasn’t just a pair. It was a group of four. And it had always been—I realized—a group of four. There were lots of other squirrels around, but here was this…clan…running together in the clearing down the hill, foraging together, and racing across the grass to a particular tree, where they would run up the trunk and disappear.

Their relationship is as constant as that of the turkeys, and as I look back I realize how much their antics have been a fixture of my mornings, if only in the background of my awareness. The other squirrels nearby did not interact with them, unless it was to run off a competitor. But I think it was the other squirrels who must have been run off most often in the face of this four-squirrel brigade.

I can only guess that they are siblings, but who knows. They seem to have broken the usual squirrel pattern of solitary nut-gathering, but maybe these behaviors have been happening all along and I wasn’t paying attention. Or maybe it is an adaptation, a move to provide a common defense against the aggression of the red squirrels. Not being an authority on squirrels means I have the fun of speculation. Do they feel affection for one another? Do they feel a blood connection? Or is this merely a business/military relationship?

I have one clue—based on pure observation without anthropomorphizing. Last year, I passed a newly-dead squirrel by the side of the road, and beside it, I could see a living squirrel, frantically patting the dead body as if attempting to revive it. I wanted to stop, but there was nothing to be done. Was I going to comfort the living squirrel? Help it bury its dead? I watched for a second or two in the rearview mirror and went on in a somber mood.

It is pouring rain in the precursor to a winter storm, and the rain is just now—finally—changing to heavy, wet flakes. As I sit in my cozy library, fire crackling, coffee nearby, I see the four friends, utterly indifferent to the weather, running together up the tree, down the tree, to another tree, and jumping from branch to branch, tree to tree overhead. They don’t seem to be working, but playing. Maybe to keep warm, or maybe because the hard work of food gathering is seasonal. Or maybe because it’s good squirrel fun. I’d certainly do it if I could. Although maybe not in this weather.

I wish them safety in the coming storm.

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Gratuitous Dog Photo