Laura Michet's Blog

Two squirrels

I was in Santa Monica recently. The downtown part of the city is above the beach on a sort of cliff. The cliff is completely covered in California ground squirrels, which people clearly feed. They'll come right up to you.

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The cutest thing I saw, however, was a california ground squirrel interacting with the local invasive tree squirrel species - an eastern fox squirrel. I regret to report that I missed a photo of them actually touching noses. I am so ashamed!! I could have gotten the most Los Angeles squirrel photo of all time.

Instead, I got several photos of them hanging out near each other. The fox squirrel is in the tree, and thew ground squirrels are taking a dust bath below.

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And here's the picture I took a half second after they interacted. The ground squirrel is in the fork of the branches on the left. It's blending in pretty hard:

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I was so mad about missing the squirrel nose touch picture that I started describing my whiff to two elderly women who were walking past me. They stared at me like I was insane and walked away. Oh well!! They're missing out on some incredible squirrel-viewing.

#los_angeles #squirrels