There are at least five of us that frequent your bird feeder from time to time.  Take my friend, Flash, for example.  I think he has a little ADD. Every time another squirrel comes around, Flash makes a real nuisance of himself.  He gets right in your face and drives you crazy and then he’s up a tree making someone else crazy too.  It seems to be his mission to drive us all crazy, but he’s just a little hyper.  He can’t help it.  He’s also known for jumping very high and doing flips from time to time. Flash is a suitable name for him and it doesn’t make him feel any different than the rest of the squirrels. In fact he likes being called, “Flash.”  It makes him feel like a super hero or something like that.

I have another friend named, “Nutsy.” He’s quite an acrobat. Some of the older squirrels think he should be in the circus.  Last fall he bravely carried a branch across the electrical wire.  The branch had a nut on either end of it.  It was like one of those balancing dumbbells you see at the gym.  Nutsy was so good at his high wire act, we were sure he’d take his show on the road, but we never found out if he did or not.  He hasn’t been around for a year or so.

My friend, Bigley, is the one who makes a pig out of himself.  I’ll bet he’s gained at least a pound since you started feeding the birds.  A pound is a lot for a squirrel.  All that extra weight can slow you down and make it easier for the cats to catch you if they can.

Bigley didn’t start out big.  Like the rest of us, he looked like a little rat when he was born.  Maybe he has a over active thyroid and his metabolism causes him to gain weight faster than the rest of us.  That’s an uniformed guess on my part.  I’m not a scientist.  I’m just a squirrel after all. He doesn’t get a lot of exercise though.  Maybe he should start doing pushups. 

“Stretch” got his name because of his ability to stretch from the pole to the bird feeder. He’s very agile.  In fact he learned to climb that pole before any of the rest of us even thought about it.  I know you were frustrated that we were all digging in and helping ourselves to the bird seed, but we get hungry too. 

Even when you resorted to putting grease on the pole, Stretch made it to the top after sliding down only three times.  What a guy.  He then proceeded to hang onto the pole with his back feet, grab the feeder with his front and stretch out far enough to devour some seeds and cause some to fall to the ground for the rest of us.  Squirrel ingenuity I would say.  At least it’s a good way to make friends and influence squirrels.

I won’t bore you with the names of all of my friends and relatives. That could take a long time.  I do think it’s funny how we get our names.  Names are kind of like labels – sometimes good and sometimes not so good.  I guess it depends on how we look at it.