The familiar noise led me straight to them.
We were so glad to see them early this morning, as it explains why we only saw the mom around.
The one in the first two photos, sat in the trunk of a low-level palm tree, and as I approached, it scattered into the dense and leafy crown of the tree. But as you can see below, the second squirrel was much more exposed, and I got it on my zoom.
Since the early days of summer, we could only on rare occasions see the mother when she collects acorns and the odd sunbaked granadilla in our front garden stash, that my wife gathers for them. She was very worried as it was only the one and we didn't realize that it was in fact the mother collecting food to feed her babies.
Today, the babies decided to put on a show, and we were delighted.
Here's a challenge. Have a look below, at the high palm in the middle and tell me if you can see the second young squirrel?
There he was on the trunk near the top of the high palm, and the open little mouth means that he joined the first one in calling for their mother.
Now the danger is that his calling was so loud, that the entire neighborhood could hear him, and I was worried that a predator bird might also hear him. A bird like the harrier hawk can easily pluck the squirrel off from the trunk of that high palm tree.
So I walked toward the tree and he decided to vamoose.
Up and over he went.
I was scared that he was going to jump, but thankfully he didn't.
So, he scattered down the tree, then he turned to the left behind the trunk so that I could not see him coming down.
But I knew where he was going, as he dashed across the road to climb up and disappear in the thorny acacia trees. A much safer place.
So here soon, they will also come and join their mother here at the front garden stash, and thankfully there is a lot of natural food for them. Picky little buggers, as they are very selective, but we know what they like and soon we will have a lot of squirrels again. These are only the first two, and we are sure that there are very many others around, that is if the predator birds didn't raid too many of their nests. Remember that I placed a post before of an adult Harrier Hawk with a little squirrel baby in its claws.
This reminds me about our human lives, as just like the squirrels and the other small animals we also have to face many pitfalls in our travels through life. Tears are plenty and crying comes naturally, but then again just like these little squirrels some of us grow into wonderful adults. Not all of us make it, and neither do all of the squirrels make it. But that is just the way of life. It is the decisions that we make that govern our lives, either for the better or for the worse. The good thing is that we can learn from them.
Such is life.
I hope you have enjoyed the story and the pictures.
Photos by Zac Smith-All Rights Reserved.
Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.
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