Chipmunk in a tree


Chipmunk in a Mulberry Tree, from the Undiscovery Channel

Houses make superior wildlife blinds, provided your yard isn’t some manicured, chem-lawn desert. I shot this video through two panes of glass in the window next to my writing table this afternoon, a welcome break from answering qarrtsiluni correspondence. I’ve been asked why I leave the storm window down in that window year ’round, and this is part of the reason: so I don’t have to shoot through a screen.

I was originally planning to publish a grim little piece I wrote yesterday about shooting an injured bluejay, but fate intervened. If for some reason this leaves you wanting still more cute chipmunk pictures, I did post one to the photo blog, too. In four hours, it’s already racked up five times more page views than that poor mushroom photo has gotten in four days. Damn. O.K., I give up! Tune in next time for some adorable footage of puppies and kittens.

10 Replies to “Chipmunk in a tree”

  1. Okay, okay, I went and looked at the mushroom. Only took four minutes to download, but I damn sure can’t watch a chipmunk video at these speeds. So all I have is mushrooms. Nice mushroom. Not cute, but a goodern. rb

  2. marja-leena – Those would’ve been western chipmunks, I guess, but I don’t think they too different from the eastern species in looks or habits.

    At the moment the chipmunk population here in Plummer’s Hollow is at an all-time high, which might be part of what’s sending the chipmunks into the trees.

    arby – I’m impressed with your patience! Sure hope you get broadband soon.

    CGP – Thanks. I wasn’t intending to drum up page views for the mushroom with my mention, honest! But what the heck. I think it’s topped 50, now – and over 300 for the chipmunk.

  3. Chipmunks are very tightly wound, no doubt (and quite ferocious, too) – but that’s what makes them fun so fun to watch. I’m convinced that the monotonous, metronymic chipping they do is a stress-reduction thing, a form of trancing (though I’m sure it serves a territorial purpose, as well).

  4. One day, looking out the third story bedroom wondow, I spotted a squirrel taking his ease on a branch of the oak tree. The little guy appeared, at moments, to be drowsing, then would do a little grooming, look around, and go back to stillness. It was fascinating to me, because, well, who ever sees a squirrel being a slug? They are non-stop motion machines. I woulda took his pic, but there’s a screen, and I don’t like shooting through them. I just stood there about ten minutes watching him.

  5. Yeah, it’s fun to watch animals chilling out. This was a gray squirrel? I’ve watched them pausing for prolonged periods, too. Fox squirrels are even more lethargic. Red squirrels, though, are more high-strung, which makes me think there’s a direct correlation between size and tenseness in the squirrel family!

  6. It always amazes me that people feed things like ‘chipmunks’, ‘puppies’ ‘kittens’ into Google then sit hours at a screen gazing at the results, but they must.

    Anyway, this led me to a good sort of long-time-no-see wallow in Visual Soma, which was highly enjoyable.

    We have no squirrels here any more at all, though I’m told there were once. I’ve seen quite confident red squirrels in town parks in Normandy. I wonder why grey squirrels only invaded and drove out the red ones in Britain, and apparently not in the rest of Europe?

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