Squirrels

Here is a short video of our regular garden denizens. While we can get quite a variety of birds in the garden, other wildlife is a bit sparse here in the center of the San Fernando Valley. There are almost always squirrels about, and opossums make regular nocturnal journeys, but little else if you don't count the large number of tame and feral cats.

Some people say you can learn to identify individual squirrels as they come back to your garden again and again, but for me they all tend to look the same. Maybe by shooting some video, and getting a better closeup I can start to differentiate them. I noticed that this one has a distinct spot near his shoulder. Tails are also supposed to be a good field mark, as the males often pull at each other's tails when fighting, leaving bare spots and such.

Here is a bit of trivia. The Italian word for squirrel is scoiattolo. I had to look that one up one day when our Sicilian relatives were visiting. They were quite amazed to see squirrels romping right here in the garden, as the squirrels in Sicily are very shy and only populate the forests around Mount Etna. I am guessing that since the urban density is much higher in the big cities, the squirrels don't find hospitable areas within the city iteslf. Too much stone and concrete.

Link: Previous mentions of squirrels
Link: Books about Squirrels

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