Beyond Summer's End

The days are getting shorter and colder in my neighborhood as the chill of autumn takes longer every day to lift and we all learn again to pace ourselves accordingly. 

Among the half dozen or so squirrels I used to feed during the dog days of July heat there's now one visitor who leaps from the ground to my back stoop avoiding the stairs entirely, some thirty-eight inches (yes, I measured it) high and leans against the double-pane thermal glass in the storm back door to peer through it to see what the peanut-dispensing biped is up to because he isn't throwing legumes out into the backyard.

More often than not, he gathers two peanuts together (there's a market for squirrel shopping bags, I imagine, but I don't know how to collect their money) and scampers off, but not too far, to bury the nuts somewhere on the property or near it where I'm assured he remembers where they are, though I have no idea how he pulls that off 

As the colder months approach, that squirrel along with his colleagues(?) seems more single-minded about this routine with every passing day. I'm trying to imagine what the animal uses in October to find the buried peanuts in January. Eco-location?

The squirrel hurries back where the thrown peanuts are scattered because he's in a race with the blue jays who swoop down, grab a peanut and then give themselves a headache, I believe, standing on a tree branch holding it in their beaks while slamming it into the tree until the shell cracks. I can understand why they prefer bugs and slugs.

There was a day recently that a squirrel and a bird had a difference of opinion that I joined, already in progress. The audio cue had been that annoying yell that blue jays never tire of-ever. He just kept at it and kept at it. No less incessant, but barely audible was what I at first thought was a bike tire losing air-a soft, low steady hissing. I looked out the window and saw a squirrel facing off with the bird over a thrown peanut.

One hopped while the other stepped. One cocked its head to one side and scolded loudly and the other stood on its hind legs as if to bow. I threw out some more peanuts hoping to defuse the situation but it was too late-they were captured by the conflict. It was on and gone. All I could do was close the door after promising to feed whichever one showed up the next day.
-bill kenny