Pointless squirrel photo of the day:

There will probably be a few of these in the next while. One of our local squirrels was tempted enough by the bird seed yesterday that it let me get within about a metre and a half for some portraiture.

It was kind of funny, actually. Red squirrels aren't like the grey squirrels that people in the east might be familiar with. They're not at all social. In fact, one of my university professors once admitted that he wasn't entirely sure how red squirrels ever get close enough to each other to manage to reproduce. They're extremely territorial and can have pretty vicious fights with each other when there's any kind of dispute about who belongs where.

Erm, and before I go any further: in regards to the mating problem, all I can say is that hormones are wonderful things. If you're into mating, that is.

Anyway, this particular squirrel was torn between wanting the free food and wanting to put a helluva lot more distance between it and the idiot with the camera. Food won, obviously, since this shot wasn't taken with a zoom. Any time I moved a little too quickly it was up on the trellis swearing at me, but it would only take a few seconds before it was back at the feeder chowing down.

I know a lot of people have a problem with letting squirrels rob their feeders, but I find it very entertaining. Besides, red squirrels are little wee things. They're not likely to eat you out of house and home. As long as there are food sources elsewhere they'll only hang around a bird feeder for a few minutes at a time and then find something else to eat. And the birds always come back after the squirrel's gone, folks. Like I said above, it's not like the grey squirrels who will move in and take over the neighbourhood to the exclusion of everything else that would have wanted to be there. There's no such thing as a colony of red squirrels.

They'd kill each other.





Honestly, I probably like red squirrels for their general obnoxiousness more than anything. They're cranky.

Remind you of anyone?

Anyway, that'll do it for me today. Nothing earth-shattering on the brain, and I have other things to do. I did manage to get a few interesting (read: odd) pointless photos yesterday, so maybe the blog won't be quite as boring as it's been in the past little while.

Maybe.

Big maybe.




Going now.