Sharing the Lot

haiku with reflection for red squirrel and all urban dwellers

World Wildlife Day 2024

RED SQUIRREL’S WARY

APPROACH TO THE BIRD FEEDER—

PATIENCE, CHICKADEE.

Red squirrel and the birds and everyone

Nearly three decades ago during a Council of All Beings, I selected squirrel for my character animal because I empathized with their urban plight: feeding off human waste and dodging cars, too often unsuccessfully. The urban environment can be so unfriendly.

Now, I happen to live in a neighborhood much friendlier than some with a clever red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) close by. Often, we catch one another eye to eye as red squirrel begins the long approach from the large ash tree along the fence to the roof of the neighbor’s shed then down the chokecherry to where the bird feeder hangs. Red squirrel pauses on the fence near enough the ash for a quick ascent and gazes straight at me. I imagine red squirrel sees me gazing back from the worn oak table in the sun porch.

During these long looks, I do my best to convey that all is clear. It’s true that I fill the feeder with sunflower seed specifically for the birds, who have their own pecking order. And I’m equally happy to see red squirrel eat something safe and nutritious. Though the birds consistently chase one another off, I haven’t ever seen red squirrel chase off the birds. Neither the birds chase off red squirrel. But both will approach and wait in the wings for their turn in some seemingly unspoken agreement to share the lot.

The urban environment can be so unfriendly. And red squirrel and I are blessed to live in a neighborhood with mature trees, living fences, and a few urban homesteads that provide ample shelter and food for wildlife while meeting human needs too. While this part of Montana is much dryer and less flat than where I grew up in Indiana, our hood reminds me of the bounty I enjoyed on my block as a young child.

When I was four years old after we moved from farmland on the outskirts of town, where I had been free to explore the creek that ran behind the house, I spent as much time as possible making mud pies beneath a pine tree on what we called “Monkey Island” and playing with frogs in our backyard. Frogs who, unlike squirrels, apparently had no qualms being held.

That was over forty years ago. Since then, with amphibians in the lead, monitored vertebrate wildlife populations have decreased by 69% on average according to the World Wildlife Fund’s 2022 Living Planet Report. To reverse this catastrophic trend, we need as much rewilding in our backyards and city parks as in vast forest, freshwater, and marine protected areas. The magnitude of the challenge is why projects like Homegrown National Park® and Voices for Urban Wildlife are integral to the 30 x 30 and Half-Earth goals, though these goals largely and rightly also focus on strategic critical habitat of the grand “neighborhood.”

Red squirrel isn’t endangered. Their populations “appear to be doing well” and my neighbor is eating fairly well thanks to the birds. Amphibians, birds, and the insects they often prefer for food aren’t doing so well and the opportunities for food and shelter that we provide in our backyards and parks can make a big difference for them. There’s so much we can do and are doing to help wildlife thrive in our midst for mutual benefit. Mutual benefit that includes simple delight, like that which touches me whenever I see red squirrel’s wary approach to the bird feeder.

Links for Learning

Thinking Like a Mountain: Towards a Council of All Beings by John Seed, Joanna Macy, Pat Fleming and Arne Naess

Red squirrel’s portrait by Niall G. Clancy for Montana Outdoors

Regarding their own pecking order, please see Food fight by Diana Marques—“Interactions between birds at a feeder may look chaotic but there is a method to the madness. Using data collected by about 9,500 citizen scientists with Project FeederWatch, this graphic shows the hierarchy of social dominance that governs everything, from food access to perch position.”

Wildlife in decline by almost 70% since 1970 | BBC News brief on World Wildlife Fund’s 2022 Living Planet Report

We need IMMEDIATE action to stop extinction crisis (6:00 min video) | David Attenborough - BBC

Homegrown National Park® is a grassroots call-to-action to regenerate biodiversity and ecosystem function by planting native plants and creating new ecological networks. read more…

Voices for Urban Wildlife is a NYC based non-profit working with schools and communities to promote awareness and protection of urban wildlife. read more…

In December 2022, nations finalized the most ambitious strategy in our history to protect the planet’s biodiversity, ratifying a plan to safeguard at least 30% of the Earth’s surface by 2030 (30x30). read more at Wyss Campaign for Nature…

Half-Earth, a conservation initiative proposed by the late biologist E.O. Wilson, advocates for strategically protecting half of Earth’s land and sea to restore and preserve biodiversity toward global ecological balance. explore Half-Earth…

For a glimpse of rewilding the grand “neighborhood,” see Northeast Wilderness Trust’s short film by the SALT Project Forever Wild…

To help wildlife thrive in our midst, IUCN has developed the IUCN Urban Toolbox, a catalogue of knowledge products on urban biodiversity. see IUCN’s Urban Toolbox…

Megan HollingsworthMarch 3, 2024