Squirrel nails extreme sports moves





 

 

There was a whole lotta shakin’ going on as I peered out my kitchen window at a pyracantha shrub that cascades over my neighbor’s fence. It wasn’t an earthquake—the shaking wasn’t underfoot but visible in the pyracantha’s long branches.

The shrub has produced a scarlet berry bonanza since early fall and is still chock-full of fruit.

As I gazed at the shrub it shook as if in the grip of a wild dance groove comprised of wriggles, squirms and shudders.

Sometimes when my neighbor’s gardener, Antonio, would be working on the other side of the fence, reeling in his trimmings, the pyracantha might appear to mysteriously jerk or tremble. But he’d been out two days earlier, so it wasn’t Antonio behind the fence acting as choreographer.

I squinted hard. A furry, elongated tawny-gray form was inching head first through the scarlet berry maze. How could those slender branches support the weight of anything other than the small birds who regularly frequented the shrub as their favorite juice bar destination?

Was the interloper a gray tree squirrel?

There are enough acorns available in my wooded rural Agoura community to satiate armies of squirrels. When they desire a change of menu, they shamelessly and messily raid bird feeders in the area. Easy pickings for them, and no risky high-wire aerialist stunts required.

The pyracantha overhangs our street where the trash man picks up huge blue barrels lined up just below the dazzling, dangling shrub.

This created a precarious situation for that determined squirrel. I could hear the roar of the trash truck; it was bound for our street. The truck’s auto-lift mechanical arms rather brusquely hoist the barrels high into the air, where they typically impart a solid whack to any overhanging foliage.

And there was the bushy-tailed aerialist, spread-eagled upside down on a branch that sagged under its weight, engrossed in gorging its gullet, heedless of the pending danger.

The squirrel needed to shift into reverse ASAP but was rockin’ in the pyracantha—literally. Everything shook: berries, branches and foliage as the critter joyfully exploited the culinary treasure it had discovered.

Roaring down the street came the enormous trash truck. I raced out of the house to shoo the squirrel to safety but was too late. The domed roof of the truck was just about to impact the squirrel-laden shrub.

In a moment that managed to meld frenzy, folly and fantastic fortune, the upside-down squirrel slalomed down the shrub. It skidded onto the windshield, raced across the glass, vaulted over the rearview mirror then scrabbled down the driver’s side door to the ground. From there it fled to the safety of a nearby tree.

We can only imagine how nimble the squirrel’s moves would’ve been had the truck’s windshield wipers been whapping to and fro!

Glasser is a writer fascinated by all manner of natural phenomena surrounding her home in the Santa Monica Mountains. Reach her at ranchomulholla@gmail.com.


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