Nov 10, 2022
PHOTOGRAPHY | SQUIRRELS | HOME | PHOTO-ESSAY
When Squirrels romp home
Always playful, funny, oozing with unbridled energy — discreetly watching squirrels is a matter of joy and darn fun!
Old houses with tiled roofs dotted with coconut and mango trees — makes a perfect paradise for a party of Squirrels to thrive and make merry.
If you have not seen a tiled house, this is how a typical tiled house looks in my home state of Kerala.
Below those tiles, we have a wooden ceiling and the gap between the roof and ceiling gives ample space for squirrels and other rodents to make it a home. Squirrels are quite harmless, but rats and other creatures can cause depredation of food and grains in our homes and become a source of nuisance.
Coming back to the squirrels, the particular variant of squirrels we see around here is called the Indian Palm Squirrel. Somedays I spend hours watching their acrobatics and antics. Where do they go? What do they eat? Who are their friends and mates? I want to be privy to their private lives.
Sometimes I ponder
“Do they have no fear?”
At one moment I see them running over a thin wire some hundred feet above the ground and in a split second they are seen flying in the air and they land on a precariously dangling coconut frond. They seem to have no sense of gravity in those moments.
I wanted to capture those on-air moments when they appear to be flying. It was a difficult endeavour. They were just too fast that even my high-end camera couldn’t focus on them properly. I spent a lot of time patiently watching them and clicking on burst mode, just to get that magical shot. The closest I got was this.
Curious viewers would have spotted the flying squirrel in the above picture. That is the best I have of them flying.
Fear is not an instinct. Fear is learned after pain — Doe Zantmata
Now I am introspecting my own fears, if I am made to walk on a wall just 6 feet high, I would be jittery, I would be palpitating after a few steps and I may just crawl in my four limbs instead of walking. My fears are not just learned after experiencing pain. My fears are conditioned into my brain inadvertently at a young age by the society too. How many times we have heard in our childhood “Don’t go there”, “Don’t touch that”, “Don’t do this”, “Don’t do that”, “It’s too dangerous”, yadda yadda. All those friendly pieces of advice I am sure would have inadvertently added up my mental fears. Then there is fear concocted by my own imagination running wild and projecting a non-existent pain.
Thankfully those squirrels don’t have a brain to run their imaginations wild and they can run amok doing gravity-defying stunts.
Some afternoons are inundated with their squeaky calls. Not sure why they make those persistent calls, is it for attracting their mate? or are they conveying any message?
I don’t know.
But when they start they go all out, loud and long. The ones I see here are very shy, they don’t want to be near humans. First sight of me they scamper for cover and run helter-skelter hiding under the roof or climbing up the tree. So all their photographs were taken by me clandestinely without making much of a commotion and attracting their attention to me.
The end of October also meant it was the second season of rains in Kerala. This season of rains is called Thula Varsham or Northeasterly monsoons which emanate under the influence of northeasterly winds blowing from the Bay of Bengal. After sweltering mornings, rumbling clouds makes a boisterous entry in the afternoons and it pours down for a few hours.
I was curious to know what these hyperactive creatures would be up to during those rains. Would they be hoofing in the rain and getting wet? I took my camera and went to the terrace when the rains subsided a bit. I spotted one of them sitting under the roof staying away from getting drenched.
Once the rain withered he was out jumping and running again. Those droplets of water protruding from the leaves and wires gave him more verve and fun. He enjoyed running and splashing water droplets.
In my culture and Hindu roots, we venerate not only the creator but also all the creations. And animals too are no exception, be it an elephant or crow or peacock, or cow, everything is treated with due respect. Squirrels too have their place on the altar and they have found a place in our sacred texts like Ramayana.
More on that later.
As an obeisance to our culture and our moorings, every day my dad before having lunch keeps aside a handful of cooked rice out in the open on the roof. Those are meant for the crows. Crows have a deep symbolism for us — they are believed to be the link to the dead. Thus feeding a crow is considered equivalent to feeding ancestors.
I was more interested in finding out who was eating the rice daily.
So I decided to hide and watch what was happening after the rice is placed in the open. Initially, a crow did come and he just took a nibble and flew away. Then suddenly a squirrel emerged and he started eating the rice.
It looked like he was acutely aware that the food was meant for the crow and he was stealing it. So he was fully alert and fast to grab as much as possible. I sat on the steps and ducked beneath the wall. If he saw me I was sure he would run off. Slowly I pointed my camera up and clicked a few snaps of him stealing the rice and devouring it.
It was just for a few seconds and he vanished and again a crow landed to have his share.
Survival of the world depends on our sharing what we have, and working together. If we do not the whole world will die. First the planet, and next the people — Frank Fools Crow
Always zestful and sprightly — these squirrels romped around my home. They have their fair share of challenges be it the dwindling habitat, changing weather patterns, or increasing concretization of the buildings. But one thing is sure once the morning sun shone through the eastern horizon these hobbits are out there with full verve to live their life to the fullest till the twilight time counting and ravishing each moment of the day.
Looking at them I should stop complaining about my mood swings.
