Question: How long does it take for a squirrel to crack open a walnut?
Answer: Not long at all.
I’ve clocked it … most open them up in about 10-20 seconds and finish eating the whole thing in under two minutes. So anyone who thinks a walnut in a shell represents a time-consuming challenge to the squirrel … well, you’re wrong. :)
This is that most friendly male squirrel, who apparently loves almonds more than chasing female squirrels. Actually, perhaps he’s not sexually mature yet. Don’t know. While his claws look sharp, I have yet to receive a single scratch from him or any of them. I wouldn’t generally advise anyone to finger-feed squirrels, because they can’t see directly in front of their nose very well. As you can see in the top pic, when they make a grab for it, they seem to gauge the distance then close their eyes during the actual lunge, so if you move during that micro-second you might get a nip. You’ll notice I hold the almond by the very end so there’s a bit of room for aim-error. I do the same thing w/peanuts. Everything else I toss on the ground at my feet. Occasionally if they seem too eager/hyper that day I won’t finger-feed at all.
Even with auto-focus, it’s difficult to hold a camera in one hand to get a good photo of the squirrel. Half the time the pictures come out blurry, haha.
… or maybe a bit of both? …
Baby-kitty likes to sit in the sun, but the squirrels want their almonds. Lucky for the squirrels, Baby is a first-class wimp peace-lover. Don’t worry, the squirrels still run from all the other neighbor cats. Baby’s just special. I can leave the door open all day and Baby doesn’t go outside, too. Same with the bedrooms (he won’t step past their doorways). He’s well-trained.
This is the squirrel that was the first one to be brave enough to come close to me. I thought it was a female for a long time, but recently realized it was a male. I have a feeling it’s a fairly young male, which may account for his ability to be less scared of humans … less time to have had shoes tossed at him or something. He’s the one that will trot to the living room table to be hand-given an almond or walnut in a shell, as well as jump onto the shelf where I store the bags of nuts to try and rummage for them on his own. Very friendly, intelligent, and extremely gentle … he’ll wrap a paw around a finger while reaching for the nut with his mouth, and has yet to scratch/puncture me with his claws. At first he liked peanuts in the shell, but once I started buying almonds he fixated on those almost exclusively. If I hand him a peanut he’ll take it but then drop it on the floor and stare at me as if to say “What are you trying to pull by giving me that thing?”
If he’s close by and hears the door open, he’ll hop the fence and come running. And sometimes, if he’s on the fence and sees me walking around in the kitchen through the windows, he’ll come to the door to see if I’m in the mood to give him an almond. Which is really cute. It always makes me think of that old Mervyn’s store commercial, where the woman is standing by the window saying “Open, Open, Open.”
That’s it for introducing the more in-your-face squirrels. From now on it’ll be general pictures of any squirrel I happen to acquire a cute photo of. Problem is, I have so many photos it’s hard to choose.
I can recognize this male because of his scarred right eye. There is lumpy scar tissue around the top of the eye, giving him a somewhat sad expression. If you view him from the left side, however, he looks like any other squirrel. It’s a bit disconcerting, really. :) I haven’t settled on a serious nickname for him. Sometimes I refer to him as “Sad” or “SadEye”, but that’s because I can’t think of anything else. At any rate, he’s a fairly aggressive, territorial male as far as the other squirrels go, often chasing others out of “his” yard when he’s here eating out of the dishes. He is constantly after the female squirrels (it’s mating season), running behind them all day long in the eager hope that he can get some lovin’. I think he might be one of the older squirrels, but as usual, impossible to tell. The male squirrels definitely tend to have more visible injuries or scars, likely from mating-season squabbles with other males. He’s not afraid of me, but is rather reserved, although he is one of those that will come to door and peer in to see if I’m there to hand out a treat. He prefers walnuts and almonds, and has an impatient/bold personality. He also will only take one almond at a time to bury, whilst many of the others might take multiples.
I call this black squirrel “Stubby.” In case it’s not obvious, he only has half a tail. Or maybe 5/8’s of a tail. It makes him very recognizable even from a distance. Perhaps he caught it in a mousetrap or something. He is very nervous and kind of “crawls” towards me until I toss him something.
Side note: Maybe I should make a blog sub-category of ‘backyard squirrels” or something. Then again, once I’m done posting the initial rash of squirrel pics and stories, I probably won’t post too many more after that. Meh. I don’t know.
Occasionally, a squirrel or two is sitting on the lawn in sight of the glass door and happy to see me. Most aren’t that comfortable with me (which is a good thing) and will, instead, hover back on the fences or whatever, waiting to see if I’m going to put stuff in dishes. As I said, there’s a few who are quite bold/brave, but more on them later.
It’s hard to take an in-focus picture of a running squirrel….
I don’t typically name backyard wild animals, because they’re not like cats or dogs where you become all cozy and cuddly with them - not to mention, it’s often hard to tell them apart - but some of the critters I do eventually tend to associate with a casual moniker. For instance, I think of this black squirrel as “ScarHead” or “ScarTop”, for obvious reasons.
I have no idea if he sustained his injury while fighting with other squirrels, or because he had some parasites or something, but it looked ugly. Initially it was even worse than in the top picture. I’ve read that squirrels can get fly larva parasites under their skin, which create big bumps. When the larva matures it burrows out, leaving an open sore spot. They don’t really hurt the squirrels, but I’m sure it’s irritating. Anyway, perhaps something like that happened to this fellow.
After a couple months, the injury was largely healed, and at this point I can barely tell it was there. By now, however, I can recognize him by other means - personality, certain color tones/spots on his head, etc.
