Perfect Weather for Product Photos
On a bright, sunny morning I was outside taking photographs of some of my bags and quilts.
With mature cedar, maple, tulip poplar and spruce trees in our yard we have a lot of bird and squirrel activity, and now that fall is here the squirrel population has been even more visible and frisky than usual gathering leaves for their nests and food for their larders.
We have two young black squirrels that I assume must be littermates, as they are always seen together romping around. While playing they don’t really pay me any mind – I have been deemed harmless. They often cavort just a foot or two away from me. Once this summer, one ran over me while I was napping on a deck chair!
On this particular morning, these two had some fun running back and forth behind my Bali Cream Crackle quilt as I photographed it.
Squirrel’s Nest
We have a very tall maple tree that grows right out of the deck behind the house and a pretty gray squirrel calls that home. She’s got a nest near the top that must be 80 to 100 feet up.
While I was pinning another quilt to the side of the deck to photograph it I noticed the gray squirrel coming down the tree with something round in her mouth. It was dark and furry and had a tail. She was carrying a grown youngster down the tree. She jumped over to the railing and then into the Tulip Poplar that grows nearby. The canopy of the maple and the tulip poplar trees touch.
I called out my husband to see this anomaly. The young squirrel looked just like a darker furry round ball in her mouth with a tail hanging out. This baby was no small squirrel: it was the Baby Huey of squirrels.
We held our breath as she climbed higher and higher in the Tulip Poplar and then launched herself through the heavens back into the Maple. We marveled at her ability and strength. But would she make it? Both of us moved back under the Maple to see what would happen next. She was headed back to the nest climbing straight up.
Why did she come down the Maple with the baby to then run up the Poplar, jump into the Maple, and then head back up to the nest again? Had the baby fallen earlier or wandered onto a branch to be rescued?
A Hard Fall
Just then my husband shrieked and we saw the baby fall down, down, down. It crash landed on the top of the bar-b-q right beside me. From there it tumbled down head over heals onto the deck. I had my eyes closed in shock when it was still able to get itself from the deck into the first crook of the Maple tree about 3 feet off the ground.
This squirrel was obviously no baby, it was almost ¾ the size of its mother. It rested there for a time before mother came back and carried it off again.
There is no real end to this story. We have no idea why the squirrel needed to be moved or why it needed its mother’s help. We hope it survived. Today, the squirrels are still playing in the backyard and we saw Mom gathering leaves for her nest preparing for winter. We hope the baby is okay. Good luck little squirrel.
P.S. The product photos turned out great. They were taken to display on this new version of my website. I didn’t have large enough photos of some finished patterns to look good here, but hopefully they all look good now!
What a wonderful story about the mama squirrel and her almost grown young one. We’ll never know why she came down the tree to go up another one and jump across. Poor baby to free fall to the barbecue and fall off it and then go up the tree itself. What strange behavior.
Do the grey squirrels and black ones live compatibly at your place? Our squirrels are a soft brown here. Somebody brought some of the black ones to Victoria. They have gone out and multiplied and have moved as far north as Nanaimo and possibly further up island. They kill the brown squirrels and their babies and are taking over as the predominant squirrel. Too bad somebody did not realize that they were here soon enough as I doubt they could be eradicated now. Thanks, Brenda for the nature story.
Yes, all these squirrels literally hang out together in my backyard. We’ve got more black squirrels than gray ones here and further north you’ll find the red squirrels. They are the pretty ones.