Peculiarly Squirrelish

Description

John Muir described the Douglas (or Douglas’s) squirrel as “the wildest animal I ever saw – a fiery, sputtering little bolt of life.” He also called them “the squirrel of squirrels” and “peculiarly squirrelish”. Hiking the Oregon wilderness – particularly in the late summer or early fall months – you can’t miss these little balls of energy. And you can’t help but hear their oddly adorable, high-pitched warning cries. I could watch the antics of the Douglas squirrel all day long. But for a description of those antics, I have to again defer to Mr. Muir: “He threads the tasseled branches of the pines, stirring their needles like a rustling breeze; now shooting across openings in arrowy lines; now launching in curves, glinting deftly from side to side in sudden zigzags, and swirling in giddy loops and spirals around the knotty trunks; getting into what seem to be the most impossible situations without sense of danger; now on his haunches, now on his head; yet ever graceful, and punctuating his most irrepressible outbursts of energy with little dots and dashes of perfect repose.”