Sciuridae Shenanigans

I walk every morning and often see the squirrels in the neighborhood running, chasing, climbing and in general attempting to remind me of the?John Fogerty lyric, Look at all the happy creatures dancin’ on the lawn. This morning one small over-achiever elevated dancin’ into floor acrobatics.

I was walking past the street end of driveway while the nonpareil member of the rodentia order was up by the garage door. The happy creature bolted across the driveway towards a one-foot high wall. A simple vault of the obstacle was neither difficult nor sufficient. The leap was easily three times the required height. At the apex of the arc, the squirrel did a superfluous aerial walkover. Even this had to be one-upped as while the?head was pointed straight down, rotation (and possibly gravity) was briefly suspended. I might have imagined that I was given a "look ma, no hands” glance, before rotation was resumed and followed by a four-point landing. A simple hop into a bougainvillea plant afforded the opportunity for taking a celebratory pause for an implied bow. My acrobat then went sciuridaeing into the leaves, heading off to the next performance venue.