Tuesday, December 14, 2010


an unusually plump California ground squirrel
Otospermophilus beecheyi

OK. I swear this will be my last post of Fatty... unless something unusual happens. I've been laughing all evening while looking through my recent photos. For the past couple weeks, I've had the camera out with hopes to capture the new unknown hawk in our area and the winter songbirds. Mostly, I get bits of trees and blurs of wings, nothing clear enough for a positive ID. While I wait for the birds, I'll take a couple pics of the fat ground squirrel, who is always present and doesn't move much. Haha, it didn't look like it was too pleased with me taking a picture of it eating. How rude of me! And, no, I don't feed the squirrels or the birds. I think all wildlife should earn an honest living. Plus, I wanted to illustrate with the second pic above why my squirrel and bird pics are so fuzzy - I use the maximum zoom setting on my point-and-shoot.

ps - I lied. I forgot I still feed a couple scrub-jays peanuts when they come calling.

7 comments:

TexWisGirl said...

OMG! I somehow missed your earlier post of Jabba the Hut! He is just SO FAT!!! I think the hawks must be terrified of him, or maybe they're laughing so hard they can't attack! :)

TexWisGirl said...

Okay - I'm sure you've seen the famous "mad bluebird" photo that has been reproduced into almost every kind of thing imaginable. I think you could corner the market on fat, mad squirrels with this one!!!

Nature Drunk said...

So cute! I do love the squirrels and although I do not feed them, I do feed the scrub jays. They are fascinating to watch and oh so beautiful. A woman in town has a scrub jay in her garden who she has named Peanut. She has trained him to eat peanuts from her hand, hence the name, and now his offspring does as well.

Katie (Nature ID) said...

twg, thanks to your comment, I embedded a link to my backdated Jabba post, which I only posted this evening. This week has been crazy busy - holidays and end of the year stuff. I don't know about this mad bluebird. Send me the link, please.

Amber, I am such a sucker for the scrub-jays. They have so much personality and have trained me well.

Dejemonos sorprender said...

Hi, beautiful captures. i liked:)

Bill S. said...

Now that ground squirrel is ready for winter. Great captures and post.

Katie (Nature ID) said...

OK, twg, I looked up the mad bluebird. I hope people click on the first photo to really see the expression of this fat, mad squirrel.

D.s., thanks! Your photos are wonderful, too.

Bill, I really didn't intend to have so many pictures of this squirrel, but the birds have been camera shy.