Squirrely Scurry!

Squirrely Scurry ... say that three times fast! I take many pictures of squirrels—too many—I'm sure. The other day I was photographing one in the feeder and I mentioned it was a different one. Rick goes, "You can tell them apart?" I guess I can, especially now that I've taken so many photos. The squirrel pictured above is the one I photograph most often. I call her "Squirrely". She's pretty easy to distinguish by the straight line that goes up her nose.

This squirrel pictured above could very well be Squirrely's brother or sister. This one has a much darker, richer looking coat. I love the dark, chestnut color of his or her fur.

This is another squirrel in the scurry pictured above. This one looks a lot like Squirrely, but you can see it's a different one by the nose markings. When the second and third squirrels are in the feeder, Squirrely sits on the rock and chirps and chatters up a storm. She doesn't like sharing her seeds with these two.

I'm pretty sure this was their mother. I named her "Nips", and you can probably see why. She was the resident squirrel at my feeder for a very long time. Some of you might remember her. She was the one who got me interested in photographing squirrels.

Now I *think* these are the three squirrels who are hanging around right now—or the first three I posted above. I'm not positive, of course, but I'm thinking these are the same ones. I also think they might be the babies of Nips. One day I got a few pictures of them playing together in the tree. They must have just started coming out of their nest.

This last picture is bizarre. I've seen them do this only ONCE. They were both so young here, so I guess they weren't too possessive yet. Squirrels generally don't like to share food once they get older, so I consider myself fortunate to get some pictures of them together. Now if I see two in the feeder, it's always a massive battle. They usually fight so viciously, flinging themselves out and over the deck railing—tossing seeds everywhere in the process.

The three squirrels have been coming out at the same time lately, so there's been a lot of chattering going on ... and chasing, and fighting, and screeching. Now that I can tell them apart better, I need to come up with a name for the other two. After all, I can't call them all Squirrely!