[ Atop a wooden post sits a grey squirrel holding a chunk of bread crust in their front paws. Their tail is curled up and lays along their spine, and their ears are perked slightly forward. The post is maybe three feet high & the squirrel is sitting maybe four feet from the camera. In the background is a city park, green grass with a line of trees curving in from the right side of the shot. ]
This lil dude* let me get SO CLOSE.
I’ve always been extremely fond of squirrels — apart from that one time they got tired of eating the birdseed & started chewing up the bird feeder, I’m still cranky about that — & I had a squirrel friend for a while once, so when I run across one who’s braver than usual, I’m always pretty pleased.
This one? SO BRAVE.
[ Even closer — the camera’s got to be within arm’s reach. The squirrel has sat up slightly, and their left ear has swiveled a bit to point towards the camera, but they’re still happily nibbling at the bread. ]
I was moving as slowly & smoothly as I could, which is still pretty smoothly unless I get a muscle spasm or something, camera held out but not too far. I just wanted to see how close I could get without scaring them. Which was. REALLY close.
[ The squirrel has looked up, though they’re still holding up the bread. I think this is about when they stopped chewing, though. ]
I figured I’d stop as soon as they froze, or otherwise indicated they were getting uncomfortable, but I must have missed the signs, cos they went from ‘looks pretty happy’ to ‘vigorously buggering off’ without much indication that I could make out. No surprise — I don’t know squirrel language NEAR as well as cat language. I do feel bad about actually scaring them off, though. I’ll hafta go sit in the park & just watch them for a while, I guess.
Anyway they took their bread with them, so at least they didn’t miss their lunch!
* no, I don’t know this squirrel’s sex OR gender; I felt that inquiring about either would be rude without a formal introduction
