In my neverending quest to create weekly features to fill empty days on my blog for your entertainment, I once again turn to my vast photo archive for inspiration. As I’ve mentioned before in my Saturday Squirrel posts, a few times each year, I’ll spend a couple hours in the morning at the local park with the sole purpose of photographing the antics of the wide variety of sciurines that inhabit the one semi-green space in my fair city. I’ve made twenty such trips thus far, and decided to spend each Tuesday for the next 20 weeks showing off what I captured on each of these park excursions. No, it won’t be EVERY photo like some really bad vacation slideshow your evil aunt makes the entire family watch while holding their eyelids open with tweezers… but it will bring out some photos I’ve never showed off before on The Nest, while also including all of the favorites you’ve seen me post over and over before.
And I’ll hold myself to showing off the pics in chronological order to recreate the order I captured each of these events. That photo you see above that I turned into a title card… that was my very first photo I saved from my very first park trip, which was on the morning of Friday June 13, 2014. Yes, what better way to spend a Friday the 13th than enjoying the cute, smiling faces of the furry park squatters!
Aw, come on… no need to hide! Just because I’m some weirdo with a camera doesn’t mean I’m the park pervert…
Looks like someone found themselves a pretty big nut!
No nuts for you, buddy!
That’s OK, I wasn’t interested anyway after it’d been in your mouth. Thanks for the cute photo of you standing with it, though…
Aw, this squirrel looks like it’s just a little kid! Isn’t it adorable?
I caught you taking pictures of little squirrels in the park, you prevert!
Well, sue me then! And I’ll take your picture as well! How do you like those acorns?
Hey there, squirrel! Mind if I get your picture……?
Wait a minute! Where did he go!?!? He was here just a minute ago. He must be a chameleon or something…
I am reasonably certain that these two photos are of the exact same squirrel giving me the exact same perturbed look, but from two different trees!
Someone’s happy to be showing off their bright white belly…
How about a pair of blonde tailed squirrels? There were quite a few squirrels sporting this look at the time…
Here’s a better shot of one of the blondies. And you can see how the fur dramatically thins out at the base of his tail. If I were a squirrel in June, I wouldn’t want all that excess fur either!
Looking for nuts in an anthill, maybe?
I like to see a little ginger in my squirrels…
How can you stand to be out in that hot sun, human?
OK, the squirrels are seeking shade, so I guess that will end this trip. That was a fun look back at a simpler day and time, wasn’t it? Of course it was. We’ll see what fruit my second trip to the park bore next Tuesday….
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
they are great!! I first thought the one in the tree who caught you while taking photos has a gun… had he one?
He might. Squirrels would make great snipers. If we would have sent a squirrel after bin Laden, he would have been dead the next day….
Hmm….second look at that squirrel in the tree and I’m thinking it was a rocket launcher……! I just love watching squirrels. I’m curious about your “blonde-tailed” variety – I may have to google that one!
Pam
They’re not a special kind of squirrel… they’re just regular squirrels whose tail fur has molted and are showing off their underfur until the new grey grows back in. I’ve seen enough blonde tailed squirrels that I don’t even pay special attention to them anymore unless there’s something unique about how it looks… like my “squirrelcoon” whose tail fur only fell out in sections!
Yeah I did look it up on Google and “get it” now about the blonde tails……also saw a white squirrel for the first time during the google-venture. Very cool.
They are all so wonderfully CUTE!! Those blonde ones are rare I think, but I love them all!
The tail color is actually due to the fact that their primary fur has temporarily molted, and the yellowish-orange is their underfur. I had one squirrel in my neighborhood a long time ago whose underfur was a brilliant orange color, and was unmistakable to pick out until it grew back. And then there was another squirrel I had a few years ago whose tail fur was missing in a striped pattern to where it looked like it had a raccoon tail!
Aw!!! Clappy hands and subdued squealing on my part. Such lovely and refreshing photos. Yes it was a simpler time, a time when folks actually COULD visit a park without being judged on their suitability as a scapegoat for spreading certain ugly viruses. Thank you for sharing!!
Oh, don’t get me started. Luckily, it’s rained so much the past month and a half, that even the good weather days would have the park looking like the Everglades. I impatiently await a return to sanity so I can get back to what accounts for my life…
Those are some nice shots! Damn squirrels, they’re just too photogenic.
😉
I am glad I am not photogenic, because I’d hate to have people stalking me around to take my picture all the time…
I still can’t believe you manage to get all those shots without the squirrels being just a blur…
I either have a magic camera, or we just have some very slow squirrels around here…
The squirrels are still chasing each other, but I think a few have caught one another and are off nest building. The last squirrel is a real beauty. Could win a contest.
Most squirrels could win a beauty contest… and they wouldn’t even have to shave their legs to pull it off.
These photos are too adorable for words. 😀
Thanks! Just wait until you see the other 19 trips…
Are you sure we can trust you to post pics chronologically? I mean, we’re talking about squirrels, the original park prankster after all. Nice photos of the neighborhood hoodlums. 🐿
No squirrels were involved in the processing of my digital film, so I’ll trust the numerical suffixes on each photo. Photobombing is the only way they participated in this feature…
😆
I like the ears on Mr. Perturbed. He does not care for you and your stinking camera.
The ears were the giveaway that it was the same squirrel. If they didn’t want their picture taken, they shouldn’t have looked so cute…
Such great shots–I hope you’re going to do another calendar!
I think that theme’s done since I already considered every squirrel I photographed prior to last Fall for it. But you will get 19 more photospreads like this one over the coming Tuesdays!