Life in Nebraska You Gotta Live Somewhere

Captain Kidd, Squirrel

It appears to be time to rethink our naming of the squirrel we call The Shy One.

It is no longer so shy, though it retains its personality quirk of dashing off and burying the first, and possibly the second peanuts it receives from us at its snack time.

Captain Kidd the Squirrel

Does a squirrel actually need a name? Perhaps not, yet it handy to tag them with something that identifies them as individuals, which they very much are.

Now I don't think the squirrels would dash up when we call their names, as a matter of fact, we haven't used "their names" as anything more than a reference to which squirrel that we (Vicky and I) are talking about.

However, if we were to actually name them, the one we call The Shy One would be deserving of the name Captain Kidd because of its habit of burying its peanuts as some sort of hidden treasures. Unfortunately for the other squirrels, it also is quite unsociable to them, and has no qualms of resorting to squirrel violence to pilfer a peanut from another squirrel, and is quite willing to quarrel with them for no particular reason.

The squirrel in the above picture may or may not be Captain Kidd, so far we are unable to identify them on sight, and maybe we never will, though several years back a local squirrel was quite easy to identify, and we referred to it as Lumpy, because of the bumps on its head.

Squirrel Eating Dinner

I am not too concerned that we are unable to visually identify the individual squirrels, and it appears they may be identifying us by the clothes we are wearing...

They seemed to adjust easily to seeing us in our variety of summer clothing, and us wearing a a light jacket did not seem to confuse them. Yet, today was cold, and I went out to give the squirrels a treat in my winter coat, which is much bulkier and of a different color than what I normally wear.

Today it took quite a bit of coaxing to get even The Friendly One to come close enough to take a peanut from my fingertips, and as it approached, it paused and had a long inspection of my face, then apparently it recognized me as the peanut provider, despite the fact that my coat was not the normal one for me.

Note: I have gotten into the habit of making sure (usually) that I have several peanuts in my coat pocket when I go outdoors anymore.