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Two Douglas' Squirrels 60 miles and one day apart: I spotted this recent mama squirrel chowing down (okay, I heard her first) at Tryon Creek park Wednesday, and then found the woods on Cape Meares on the coast full of smaller Douglases the next day.

These little guys are said to prefer or require old-growth or "mature second-growth" forests (Tryon is the latter), which justifies my happiness whenever I see them. It seems like a sign of a happy conifer forest!

#Wildlife #Oregon

A well-fed but small squirrel sitting on a mossy branch on a conifer in a a forest that stretches away in a dense network of branches beyond her. She is holding some sort of seed pod up in her clever fingerlike front paws to eat like a human eating a corn cob. Her large dark eye seems trained on the photographer, who is on about her level. Her belly is a very distinct light toasted orange, like Thai iced tea with condensed milk, and nipples are visible through the fur. Her long fingerlike back paws holding the branch are likewise ruddy, as is the ring around her eye, and the ends of the long guard hairs on her dark fluffy tail. Her ears are very small and her back fur is dark espresso brown.
A smaller squirrel seen from the side perching on a dead branch in a less dense forest, but also on a conifer (Sitka spruce, I think.) This squirrel is eating a similar seedpod of a different color, but its posture is a little tighter, which may be its size or a higher level of alert. The distinct boundary between the light orange belly and dark brown back fur is bend into a hairpin turn by the animal's hunching posture. Its paws seem a bit larger in proportion to its body, so perhaps it's young. It has its fluffy dark tail with orange highlights plastered along the curve of its back so the top of its tail shelters its short ears, as if keeping it warm from wind.
#wildlife #oregon
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