20130323 (J)
Journal: March 23, 2013
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Animal Souls                                  Senses

Ah ----- Spring! Nesting. The battle on the light pole outside my window was a squirrels’ nest several years ago in the hollow out hole to the top of a 30 foot high light pole, apparently fouled and not used for the last couple of years. In February a woodpecker, Downey I think, cleaned the nest, tossing out garbage for two days. The squirrels are always scurrying up the pole to the wire which goes across the street, a squirrel super highway. The nest is about 2 feet above the highway, and the top of the pole is a secure resting point along the highway, like rest area along Interstates. So squirrels were using the highway the whole time the woodpecker was cleaning the nest. Maybe the squirrels chased the woodpecker away, I never saw him after he cleaned the nest. Then in early March started appearing at and even in the nest.

Today starling showed up, the same family that lives under the eaves on the house across the street. So with starlings and sparrows going in and out of the opening at the bottom of the nest the woodpecker cleared, along comes Mrs. Squirrel and chases the birds away. She sits atop the pole and stares at the birds. The birds see her. She then ignores them while perched on the pole top.

She as all squirrels who occupied the nest in the past, scratches like crazy, using back claws front claws, and teeth to dig at what must be awful itch all over her fur of which she had dug out splotches. Is this just normal spring shedding? I don’t think so; I think the nest is infested with fleas. An hour she perched while the sparrows and starlings watched and flitted, first close, then far, then close again. (to be continued, 3 hours and the sparrows still hanging on, hoping).

(later) She won, the mother squirrel; sparrows are gone. The to-be mother is gathering and carrying last fall’s leaves to her newly claimed, perhaps reclaimed nest. I can’t recognize individual squirrels from one moment to the next, let along one season to the next.

Vignette for stage play: (based on Gulliver’s travels, pp 152-159) Old man asks a soldier, businesswoman, and housewife, “Tell me about your country?” He comments as the king of Bromdingnag.