When the Forces of Nature Won’t Let You Sleep.

I haven’t written for quite some time, and this is disgraceful. It’s not that I didn’t have time or subjects to write about; in fact, there has been an abundance of both. However, last night gave me a very good reason to write (and to laugh), because a series of crazy things combined together to disrupt my already strange sleeping habits.

As I think I’ve mentioned before, there is a considerable amount of wildlife in my neighborhood. Maybe not; I was going to write an article, but I was distracted from my purpose. Anyway, a few of my non-human neighbors plotted together to see just what they could do to keep me awake; at least their efforts, instead of putting me in a foul mood, cheered me up, mainly because I was able to fall right back to sleep.

I always go to bed late: it doesn’t matter how much I attempt to get to bed no later than midnight—preferably around 11:30—I never make it until about 12:30 – 1:00. Last night I was on top of the sheets (it was a bit too warm for anything more) at about 12:30 and fell straight to sleep. I was roused from my slumbers at 2:45 by the dulcet tones of my Kitty and our newest feral cat neighbor, Raccoon Cat (the name says it all) quarreling. Kitty’s voice is not very loud, but when she uses that tone of voice, smarter cats than Raccoon Cat turn around and run the other way. He didn’t and so, in order to keep them from waking up the entire neighborhood, I got up to see what the problem was. When I opened the door, Raccoon took off, but when I invited Kitty to come in, she ignored me; she had other things on her mind, as I discovered when she started jumping from one side of the cat carrier to the other: she had “cornered” (more like trapped) a mouse behind the carrier and that’s what the two cats had been arguing about.

Five minutes after returning to bed, and as I was drifting off to sleep, I heard a loud pounce as she pushed the carrier out of the way and captured her prey. I knew the capture had been made because it was followed by a series of terrified squeaks as the torture began… She’s a very good hunter and an even better torturer. Poor little mouse… Fortunately, I fell asleep again before the real fun and games began. And again, thank goodness the results of her prowess disappeared before I got up.

One would think, after this experience, that the denizens of my forest would let me get my beauty sleep, but alas! this was not to be; a few houses down one of the dogs must have had puppies and they decided to have a rather vociferous free-for-all. I felt like tearing out my hair as I listened to magnified growls, yips, out-and-out barking, and tussles as they fought among themselves. Their mother gave a warning growl and peace and quiet returned to the neighborhood until around five o’clock.

The sun was just beginning to conquer the moon when I was once again awakened by the inhabitants of our “woods”; angry chk,chk, chk, chks came, as it seemed, from under my bed. It wasn’t really, but when I heard another sound that I recognized as Big Bird, our red-tailed hawk, menacing the chker, I decided to get up and check things out. And there, to my sand-filled eyes, appeared a big fat squirrel holding one of my next-door neighbors’ tomatoes and threatening Big Bird with his ear-wrecking chatter. I said, “get out of there you stinky old tree rat” and he took off running, the tomato still hanging from his mouth.

Fortunately, this was the last disturbance or, if there were any others, I was fast asleep for the next few hours.

Have any others of you had close encounters of this sort, or similar, when you would rather have been sleeping?

 

© July 9, 2015 by Mary Purpari. All Rights Reserved. All photos taken by Mary Purpari. 

The Squirrels of Cypress Hills, Brooklyn

For the last three years, I thought what is portrayed in the photo on the left was a crow’s nest; it was a logical assumption because of the size and the fact we do actually have crows living in the forest composed of our neighborhood’s backyards.

Boy was I ever wrong! It is a nest all right, but it actually belongs to the little character in the photo on the right. Yes, a squirrel. Now, there are several squirrels in our neighborhood (yes, there are squirrels even in good old suburban Brooklyn, New York, along with several other creatures that one wouldn’t necessarily think of finding in a big city) including a pure black one.

We also have a very large bird of prey that comes to visit from time to time; I presume that this is why the squirrel population in our neighborhood hasn’t exploded – it’s certainly not because of the cats and dogs in the area, which have bonded with the squirrels and are more likely to be chased by the squirrels rather than the other way around.

I discovered that the nest belongs to the squirrels quite by accident; my desk faces our backyard and I love watching what goes on outside. There is always something to distract me from whatever I happen to be working on at the moment, and any distraction is an excellent reason to “run” outside with my camera and take pictures. I particularly enjoy watching the squirrels as they run up and down the trees, along the branches and jumping from one tree to the next without ever breaking their stride. The only time I don’t enjoy watching their antics is when they run along the fence and attack my vegetable garden, which they do the very moment my strawberries or tomatoes are ready to be harvested. Someday… well, that’s another discussion.

On this particular occasion, I noticed that one of the squirrels was heading toward the “crow’s nest” carrying something in its mouth. It’s way too early for that something to be from someone’s vegetable garden, since most of the backyards around here are covered with a thick layer of snow and ice. I was most curious because, as Alice would say, the situation was becoming curiouser and curiouser. Said squirrel, which just happens to be the same in the picture on the upper right, disappeared into the nest, emerging shortly thereafter, empty-mouthed.

The nest turned out to be formed by nothing more nor less than a conglomeration of soggy dried leaves – as I discovered later – that continually changes shape and size according to the circumstances. And, despite these differences the two photos are of the same nest, only two days apart. There has been a great deal of activity surrounding the nest today; there was a very strong wind last night and this morning and a large amount of the leaves fell to the ground. The photo here is of the squirrel leaving the nest after depositing the bundle of leaves, which were put into place by yet another squirrel.

Another reason for my suspicion about new members in the squirrel community is that one of the squirrels (again, I suspect it’s the mother) has been behaving in a very unsquirrely manner. If another squirrel should happen by, probably not so innocently, it gets chased off, and the nest’s resident quickly returns from whence it came. Now, in and of itself, running haphazardly is not uncommon behavior: a squirrel’s favorite pastime is chasing or being chased by other squirrels, and they will run for hours up and down tree-trunks, along branches, jumping from one tree to another, running up and down stairways, along fences while in the meantime getting into as much trouble as they possibly can. This morning, in fact, one of them found a bagel and began running all over the neighborhood with at least two other squirrels running in hot pursuit. The first squirrel’s progress was somewhat hampered by the fact that the bagel was twice his width. They provided me with much needed humor.

For some reason, there haven’t been a lot of baby squirrels in the neighborhood, and though the nest has been there for at least two years, it really is the first time I’ve noticed any activity involving it by the squirrels. In any case, we will probably be seeing anywhere from 2-8 baby squirrels in about three to four months. Baby squirrels are born blind and completely helpless, like most rodents, and depend on their mothers for 2-3 months before facing the world on their own.

Although the nest isn’t right in my own backyard, it’s close enough that when the babies begin to experiment the world around them, I should be able to see them. And, strangely enough, I’m excited about seeing them, along with the others we already know—Blackie, Blondie, Fatty, Scraggly Tail, and all the others—as long as they don’t eat all my fresh vegetables.