Soccer Dad

Bad news for rocky

via memeorandum

Rocky the Flying Squirrel that is.

Rachel Tolman, a naturalist at Long Branch, smeared a big glop of peanut butter on one of the nature center's trees. She grabbed handfuls of store-bought hazelnuts and placed them atop boxes to attract the tiny, nocturnal flying squirrels that tend to mass in the oaks every winter. Within seconds, the squirrels dive-bombed in from nearby trees, legs outstretched like fist-size silvery-gray sky divers. "They're so much more willing to be seen this year," Tolman said. "It's because they're so hungry."

Tolman was the first naturalist to notice that there were no acorns or hickory nuts this year. Each fall, starting in September, she takes daily walks through the forest to collect nuts and acorns to feed the flying squirrels and other animals at the center through the winter. This year, she found nothing. "I'm hoping this is just some weird anomaly," she said.

Hazelnuts gone and peanut butter licked clean, the still-hungry flying squirrels scampered high into the tree canopy and chirped angrily for more.

No acorns in northern Virginia. There aren't many oak trees in my neighborhood, so I don't know if this also is the case in Baltimore.

In other bad news for squirrels, I took this pictures on a friend's front lawn the other day.

That's a hawk, I think. I don't know how clear it is but it was holding something. A squirrel. Breakfast I guess.