Lambiedog

Remembering fallen friends

    Back in the day, there were ground squirrels at the bluffs wherever you looked.  And I looked at them a lot.

A purge by the county knocked them out. But their holes remain, an evocative memorial to their joie-de-vivre and fun, fast-paced lives. 

A hare's breadth

 
 

Morning preparations

    It was a beautiful morning as I stepped towards the south end of the bluffs. 

Peering down the hill, I noticed some rabbits and a squirrel involved in their morning grooming.

I decided not to interrupt their activities.

Under my nose

I was out and about when I spied a departing rabbit.

I stood there wishing it would come back.

The rabbit had been practically under my nose.

 

 It's so frustrating when you miss the low-hanging fruit.

 I went home and hung my head, reflecting on the difficulties of the hunt.

 
 Then I heard someone at the door.

 It was my friend Shayan.  

Shayan was dismayed to see me so upset. He remonstrated with me to get a grip and remember the many good things in my life.

Slowly, I emerged from my funk. 

    Sometimes it takes a good friend to put things in perspective.

My solitary labors

    Things are heating up here in terms of wildlife.  Squirrels and rabbits are present on the bluffs in increasing numbers, offering eager students many promising avenues of inquiry.  

    Yet my research is so often solitary.

    I do try to get other dogs involved. Ziggy, for example, with his great intellect, would be an outstanding research partner.  Mogul, with his boundless enthusiasm, could also doubtless advance our efforts.  Even Tramp could assist when he's in town.  

    If only.

    The problem is that, just as I seem to lack the hail-fellow-well-met gene, these guys do not seem to have the gene for research.   If I propose a wildlife foray, they're willing to follow along with me for a second or two. Then they get caught up in their interactions and forget about fauna that might be hidden in the bushes.

 

    So I straighten my shoulders and head off to find more research subjects.  

    Alone again, of course.

 

Squirrel developments

  Lots of promising developments in the squirrel department.

I have been spending increasing amounts of time gazing into their lairs, trying to get inside their heads as any good tracker would do.

The work demands close attention.

    

Perhaps unsurprisingly, my subjects have not been supportive of my research efforts. 

But that does not dishearten me.  I'm confident that if I keep my nose to the ground I will turn up more information.

 

The best scientists have taken years to realize their life's work.  Think of Charles Darwin. 

Return to Squirrelville

I was wandering the bluffs yesterday when my attention was caught by a hole.

It reminded me strongly of my halcyon days monitoring squirrel activity in precisely this area of the bluffs.  

I did some further investigation in other areas that the squirrels used to frequent.

 

     I'm not quite ready to make a decisive statement, but I have reason to believe that the squirrels are back in town.  I don't see them yet, but I sense their presence.

Final solution for the squirrels

    New intelligence on the squirrel situation just in, and my conspiracy hypothesis  actually turns out to be correct!   Apparently the government is engaging in squirrel eugenics.

    It seems that the county has set poison distribution centers below the bluff because of concerns that the extensive squirrel tunnels were contributing to the destabilization of the hillside.

 

The photo above, taken yesterday shows a poison distribution center placed on the hillside between the bluff top and the fire road halfway down the bluff.

The photo below, taken in May, shows some of the tunnels that the squirrels made in the hillside.

 

Below is a photo of a squirrel enjoying the ocean view from the bluff on a lazy afternoon back in May, before he was targeted for extinction.

I can only hope that he or she enjoyed that day to its fullest. 

Naturalist theory

Maybe the squirrels are hibernating.

Problem with this theory:  Animals hibernate to get through a long cold winter, not a temperate California summer.

Conspiracy theory

Looking back at my entries here, I realize that the squirrels' retrenchment began not long after the incident of the dead squirrel.  

Maybe someone has been poisoning the squirrels.  That would explain the dead guy I saw.

Problem with this theory:  Shouldn't there then be additional corpses on the bluff or the hillside? Even if they died in their squirrel-tunnels, you'd think there would be an accompanying odor, not to mention more dazed bereavement on the visages of the few squirrels remaining on the hillside.