Photo taken: January 29, 2016
If you think my sixth best photo ever taken was just a drab pile of brown leaves, then you need to look just a bit closer to see who’s hiding among all that dead foliage. That’s Wilson, the squirrel who enchanted me one winter morning at the park as he allowed me to follow him around as he was busily at work building a grand nest in an evergreen tree. That nest required a healthy dose of the butt-ton of leaves that were lying around all over the park, and watching Wilson scamper around and scoop them all up (often accompanied by a loud rustling sound as he sorted through them for quality purposes) then make his way back to his hideout is one of the most thoroughly enjoyable squirrel watching experiences I’ve ever had. I got a lot of excellent photos of him at work, including one I included earlier in this countdown, but this one of him standing in the middle of the leafpile with an armful of leaves up to his chest is so fucking adorable. Wilson should have been the next star of HGTV…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
The ultimate in camouflage squirrels…. nice catch!
I had no idea how well camouflaged he was until I posted it and people were wondering where the squirrel was. If you don’t know where to look, he’s hard to spot!
Who’d have thought there were nest designer squirrels? Look out David Bromstad-you got some serious competition.
I’m waiting for Flip This Nest. Or maybe even Pimp This Nest…
I’d watch Pimp my Nest!
Talk about a great hiding place!
It’s an awesome hiding place until you get squashed by some kid who jumps in the leafpile because they don’t see you…
It does take a bit of searching to find him amongst all those leaves but it’s worth the effort to see his eyes peering out from the leaves. So cute!
I can still picture Wilson rustling leaves together in his arms when I see this photo! He made me completely forget how cold it was that day…
I had to zoom in to spot him properly. I could see something but there’s a leaf just below his head which looks like the face of a dog!
So after everyone spotted pictures in the clouds last week, now we’re going to look for things in the leaves! Maybe I should start up an inkblot photography feature next year…
Now that’s a big pile of leaves – I watch them trying to get big piles up to their nests and often by the time they scale the dizzying heights they MIGHT have HALF what they started out with. They really do work VERY hard.
Pam
And of that half that makes it up the tree, about half of them blow out of the tree when they try to add them to the nest! I’m sure their nest building projects are almost always behind schedule, but they don’t seem to mind. It’s not an hourly job!
I honestly think that it would be the most fascinating experience to watch a squirrel build a nest. I mean, how do they turn a pile of leaves into an insulated tree house that keeps them alive during the time of year that used to be cold?
I don’t understand how they can keep the leaves and sticks they gather from just blowing out of the tree. There’s some interesting trade secrets going on in their nest building. They’re usually the only things left in trees during the winter…
That’s true: somehow squirrel nests survive the worst of winter storms. Surely someone’s studied the intricacies of squirrel nest-building? What if it helps us unlock invaluable secrets of architecture?