We were spending a few days with my sister, whilst there we were entertained by the antics of a grey squirrel which my wife nicknamed Crafty. Also keeping an eye on his activities were two or three Blue Tits who took advantage of his darting about to grab some of the nuts before he got there. BIL’s neighbour had hung the nuts out for the birds but Crafty saw this as a free meal it was an obvious down turn for the Blue Tits as they saw him scoffing their food.
So there we sat, having lunch, looking through the french windows watching the action, as this cheeky, fat and very healthy looking squirrel did his thing then sat on the fence looking back at us. He was not scared, in fact he seemed to be waiting for something, the `something’ was in the shape of my brother-in-law (BIL) who has been chasing Crafty off his allotment so a game had developed.
What's That?
This is how the game goes. Crafty sits on the side fence between the allotment and BIL’s garden, then runs along the back fence to the one between BIL and his neighbour’s garden. All the while Crafty is watching to see if BIL will come and chase him off, sometimes he gets a bit cheeky but most times he just wanders along the fences.
Now there is a large fir-tree on the other side of the back fence to which Crafty dashes if BIL appears to shoo him off. The main aim of Crafty’s game is to get to the nuts in the other garden before BIL can go shoo; however if BIL does go shoo, Crafty dashes up into the fir-tree and sits looking at BIL planning his next move.
Nuts!!
It so happens that BIL’s neighbour hangs the nuts on a washing line, so when Crafty reaches the dividing fence he jumps onto the line scampers along to the nut containers for his free meal. Once there he hangs upside down bum in air with his bushy grey-white tail curled over the line and proceeds to eat the nuts.
After we had watched him for some time I decided to take some photos of Crafty and found he was a born poser. Once he realised that he was in no danger he sat in various poses for several minutes, peeping from the bushes, sitting on the line, looking like he was ready to run or jump then returning to eat more nuts up side down, whilst I snapped away the Blue Tits fluttered around in the background like a backing group.
Oops Nearly!
Although people are not as fond of the grey squirrel as they are of our native red I had to admit Crafty was a natural entertainer, and rather good as well.
Michael Douglas Bosc 