Squirrels In The Park – Trip 12

Posted on August 4, 2020 by

Are you ready for the event known as Cute-apalooza?  Yes, it’s time for another Tuesday walk through the park with a slideshow from a past squirrel safari.  This week’s trip took place on Thursday morning November 9, 2017…. right smack in the middle of when we experience the Fall’s most iconic moment… the changing of the leaves.  And you will notice those bright and unusual colors in many of the photos below.  You can even see a bit in the blurry background behind our title card squirrel.

This nut’s for you!

Uh, thanks.  But please, respect the park rules and do not feed the tourists…

That’s one….. uh, twisted tail!  Still attached to a squirrel I’d assume…

There’s that Fall color.  A bit grungy, but it still compliments this squirrel nicely…

A very underrated photo I didn’t fully appreciate until I dug it out for a Saturday Squirrel in February.  I love how the sunlight outlines almost the entire body of this shadowed squirrel…

Are you appreciating me, or those stupid red leaves?

Both, Mr. Squirrel.  Definitely both…

happy squirrel

And yes, we will always appreciate happy squirrels!

And amazing bottle brush tails!  Dude, it’s getting colder!  You need to find some Rogaine for that tail before winter comes…

Are there any pervert pictures in this collection?

Would you leave me alone.  This is nature photography, there’s going to be plenty of furry nudity…

Another picture that just looks really cool with all of the bright colors.  Those orange marks on the tree bark stand out in particular…

Itchy face can strike anywhere…

I wasn’t itching my face! I was….. um…. smelling for sap! Yes, I like my nuts with syrup!

Whatever you say…

The yellow leaves were apparently more important to focus on instead of the leaping squirrel…

Contortionist squirrel doesn’t need anyone to scratch his lower back…

Hanging balls of….. um, something.  I’m not really sure what those are… but I’ll bet they make nice nest decor.

Got room for this cute face in your post?

Always!

I think this squirrel has something stuck in his teeth.  Would it be rude to mention it to him?

These two guard squirrels are ready to alert the nest should there be an attack by land or by air…

Again, my camera goes for the leaves instead of the squirrel.  Autofocus AI is not very bright, apparently…

This squirrel’s tail is so curled up to his back that it looks like a full body mohawk!

Yawn…

Don’t fall asleep yet!  It’s almost over….

I’m going to sneak on out of here while he isn’t looking….

Oh, alright.  Just one more photo.  I promise!

There, that wasn’t that bad now, was it?  Come back next Tuesday for the first trip of 2018!

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Only Cheating Ourselves

Posted on August 3, 2020 by

Tough break for the Cheetah…

March may come in like a lion, but August so far is coming in like a penguin.  OK, that may be hyperbole…. it isn’t snowing or anything.  But early Fall-like temps in the first week of August…. hell yes!  This break in the weather calls for an earworm… and what luck since it happens to be Monday!  That’s the day each week The Nest digs out another lukewarm song from that climate uncontrolled chamber of muzak we like to call the Dusty Vinyl Archive!  DJ Scratchy’s not a weather girl, but she knows which way the wind blows… while the Sponkies put on a light jacket to enjoy the last weeks of summer vacation.  It may not be hot, but today we’ll be sweatin’ to the oldies…

I very, VERY rarely set the Archive’s WABAC machine before the 1970’s… not because there wasn’t any good music back then.  Of course there was!  But it’s so much harder for me to get a grasp on a song’s “lost hit” credentials if I wasn’t around the first time it was big.

Whatever happened to these guys anyway? I think they had a hit record or two…

That said, let’s flash back to 1966 and look at the group Bob Kuban and the In-Men.  Kuban is from my home area of St. Louis, and has always been a big thing around these parts even if his band is only a one hit wonder footnote to music history.  That big song was his #12 ode to the heartbreaking louse, “The Cheater”…

“The Cheater” got a ton of airplay on oldies stations around here when I was younger, which is why I know it so well…. but I’m not sure it survived as well in other parts of the country, let alone the world.  This is an awesome song with one of rock’s more epic choruses…. catchy and fun to sing along to, but definitely not in an annoying way like so many other pop hits.

Aren’t you glad nobody plays “All About That Bass” anymore…

“The Cheater” is also home to one of rock and roll’s biggest ironies this side of ZZ Top drummer Frank Beard’s non-beard.  The man who is singing about that cad, The Cheater, is the vocalist for Kuban’s backing band, Walter Scott.  Scott disappeared in late 1983, and his body was not found until almost four years later, hog tied and shot through the chest… an obvious victim of a homicide.  The blue hearted fowl who was ultimately convicted of his murder was…. who else?… the lover of Scott’s second wife, JoAnn, who it turns out was cheating on him.

Talk about having the luck of a possum…

Please return next Monday for another lost hit that will build you up, but not let you down…

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Seek And Find

Posted on August 1, 2020 by

Cone out, come out wherever you are!

Occasionally, I like to challenge my Saturday Squirrel audience with a little game of Find The Squirrel In The Tree… because in the process of capturing these guys on “film,” I usually end up with several shots full of foliage and twisted branches that mostly hide the subject I was aiming for.

This one is a toughie, and you might have to click on the picture to see it at a better resolution to have a chance at finding the critter hidden here.  I’ll give you a hint, there’s only one feature of the squirrel that is really visible…. but once you find it, your eye will always be drawn to it!

Happy searching, and as always, have a great weekend everyone!

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Share Your World – Week 82

Posted on July 30, 2020 by

The man, the myth, the legend. And some creepy dumbass in the background…

Before The Nest gets on with sharing its world this week, I’d like to use my intro to note the passing of American broadcasting legend Regis Philbin this past Sunday at the age of 88.  While the number of TV shows he hosted over a career that spanned five decades are too numerous for me to list, I will of course always remember him as the host that literally made the US primetime version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire a smashing success at the turn of the millennium.  Regis is the only true celebrity I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting, which of course happened 19 years ago when yours truly (the creepy dumbass in the screenshot above) appeared as a zero dollar winning finalist contestant on the game show in January 2001.  Some of you were around when I spent 33 weeks recalling that story from my life on this very blog back in 2014, and there are plenty of glimpses contained within that tale which display just how talented this man was at conducting a TV show.  Thanks for the memories, Reege, and we hope that when St. Peter rendered his decision on your final destination, that you gave him your trademark response, “Is that your final answer?”

OK, now let’s share our world with Melanie’s questions for this week!

I’d like to take the 50/50 lifeline to remove two globes, please.

Are you a clean or messy person?

At work I’m as neat and tidy as possible, which is more than I can say for many of my co-workers.  At home, I’m the very definition of a slob, you know, the kind of person who’d have four cans of half empty expired chocolate frosting currently in their icebox.  I think the reason for this contradiction is because while I don’t mind living in a mess at all, I don’t want to make other people have to clean up after me, which would be the case anywhere outside of my messy nest.  I don’t like to make people do things that I’m perfectly capable of doing myself…

I coulda done this myself and saved $12,000, dammit!

If I asked you to describe yourself in five words – what would they be?

Only five?  Dammit, I’m gonna have to ask George to edit down the list…

Hmmmmm, I’m torn between p#*s, t**s, and motherf*%#?r…

Do you enjoy being out in nature?

Well, that goes without saying…. if you consider walking around the park to perv take pictures of squirrels to be “out in nature.”  You’d never get me camping, though.  Nuh uh.  I’d rather sleep in my messy bedroom than in a body condom sleeping bag among the bugs and bears…

Well, OK, maybe I do have to brave one bear while inside…

What could you spend all day talking about?

Me, myself and I.  Now, I generally keep to myself and speak only when spoken to (and sometimes, not even then)…. but if you manage to push the right (or wrong) button and get me going, watch out.  I’ll bore your fucking eardrums out talking about anything having to do with me.  Nobody at Mecca wants to hear me drone on and on about the good old days at work, but it happens.  Wanna know the exciting details behind how my shelf critters got their personalities and quirks?  I’ll “entertain” you for hours.  Oh, did I ever tell you I was on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?  Just a couple minutes ago?  Oh…. well, wanna hear about it again?

Someone make this narcissistic bastard STOP!!!!

Please feel free to share some gratitude from your life!

Today is Ody’s 11th birthday!

And I still like to embarrass him by showing his kitten pictures…

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Squirrels In The Park – Trip 11

Posted on July 28, 2020 by

It’s time for another Tuesday trip down memory lane squirrel watching at the local park!  This week’s journey takes us back to the morning of Thursday August 24, 2017, three days after the much ballyhooed American solar eclipse, and it seemed to have an effect on the squirrels.  This is one of the more interesting collections of park squirrel photos I have in my archive, and contains easily my favorite picture of them all.  You wouldn’t know it from the bland title card for this week, but trust me, it’ll be like squirrels gone wild, and you might even learn something!

Yes, the squirrel pervert strikes again, taking pictures from down under…

Would you trust that thin branch to hold you that high up in the air?  Squirrels are crazy!

Tennis anyone?

No thanks, I’ll just sit under the bleachers.

Or perhaps bowling is your sport of choice?

Of course, that wasn’t a bowling ball the squirrel was holding… it was a walnut!  The walnuts we know and love actually grow inside of this hard green shell, and they’re plentiful in the park in late summer.  You can see the tooth marks where the squirrel was trying to chew through the husk before he noticed me and dropped it.  You can learn more about walnuts in this old post of mine that draws a lot of Google searches from other people who didn’t know about the walnut’s green home, or you can stay tuned to this post later for a practical demonstration….

Hnelp Nme!

This picture never fails to crack me up.  It looks like he has his nose stuck in that nut…. maybe from trying to crack it on his forehead like a beer can?

The nut goes in your mouth, not your nose, dude!

You tell him!

Are you OK?  He looks a bit nervous about something…

SURPRISE!!!!

A sneak attack in progress…

I was trying to follow these two squirrels high up in this tree, and lost track of them.  So I scanned through the area using the zoom on my camera.  That squirrel on the right, with the nut in his mouth.  I finally managed to find him……

Doing this!!!!

squirrel hanging upside down

Hello down there!

Yes, it’s the legendary Batsquirrel!

squirrel hanging upside down

You look weird upside down, human!

Speak for yourself, dude!  You’re a good 50 to 70 feet up in that tree hanging upside down like a possum!  Are you nuts or something!?!?

squirrel hanging upside down

Speaking of nuts, I got a real tasty one here! Wanna come up here and share?

No, of course I don’t!  I’d very much NOT like to fall on my head.  If I tried to hang upside down by my toenails, it wouldn’t be pretty…

squirrel hanging upside down

Eh, suit yourself then! Nom, nom, nom…

Of all the daredevilish things I’ve seen squirrels do, Batsquirrel takes the nutty cake!

On the lighter side of things…. here’s a see through golden tailed squirrel with the sun lighting up his amber highlights.

If you look closely, you can see some walnut still hanging in this tree.  Wanna watch the magic happen now?

Do I have to?

No, it’s a free country.  Do whatever you like.  But you’ll miss out on the big reveal….

Observe…

Chomp…

Chomp, chomp, chomp…

Just about to the good part…

A little more…

Voila!  The real walnut!  And no visit to the dentist required…

That’s impressive. But I’ll stick to ready to eat nuts…

You do that, little squirrel…

And with a final picture for those of you with a squirrel foot fetish, we’ll end this week’s trip to the park!  Join me next week for my very first visit in the dead of Autumn!  Be sure to pack a light jacket…

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