Squirrel Appreciation Day!
Yup! Even squirrels have a holiday! I love squirrels and all their mischievous antics.
Every January 21st is National Squirrel Appreciation Day which was created back in 2001 by Christy Hargrove a wildlife rehabilitator at the Western North Carolina Nature Center. Squirrels are one of the cutest, smartest and athletic critters which some folks dislike and others love them. I'm especially fond of gray squirrels, but where I live there are very few oak trees so we have more brown squirrels than gray squirrels.
These next 2 photos are of a gray squirrel I became acquainted with at a campsite in Florida. Very cute, very photogenic, but also very mischievous. I had set up my laptop on a picnic table and had a small black pouch with some cables in it and the little rascal decided that he wanted the pouch. He had it in his mouth and started running away with it when I yelled at him to drop it. Fortunately, he did. I still have the pouch and the teeth marks in it. Funny now, but it wasn't then.
These two photos are of the same squirrel. The first photo is my favorite and one of my most popular photographs. I mean how cute is he!!
The last photo is of the brown squirrel who is equally as cute, but boy oh boy are they mean. I was out in the field across from my house just wandering about looking to do some photographing when I heard in the long grass a rustling...I froze looking around to see what it was and saw up in the nearby tree it was a brown squirrel who I started photographing when again I heard more rustling in the grass and looked away from my camera and saw the other brown squirrel heading right for me, I immediately started walking backward and away from the squirrels. You don't want to mess with the brown squirrels.
The photograph I did capture if you take a look you can see him yelling at me. Probably telling his friend "Get Her"!!
Sometimes when I go walking in the woods I can hear them chatting or sending out a warning not to get too close to wherever they are. I usually can't see them.
As a teenager, I remember we found a baby gray squirrel in our yard and waited to see if its mother was around. Unfortunately, she was probably killed and we ended up raising this little guy who we called Oscar. I remember Dad made him is own squirrel house and nailed it up in the oak tree. Oscar grew up and lived in the wild with his own family.
I love squirrels and they are a truly amazing animal! How do you feel about them?
Join my mailing list and receive a monthly newsletter with all the latest on new artwork, events, and promotions or by text message CindiRPhotos to 22828.
See you next time!