Rabbit-hole entries to commence later, but for now, a sad note–I woke up, and saw Gimpy on the feeder. I almost didn’t recognize him because you could now call him “Stumpy”–his tail’s about a third the length of a regular squirrel tail, and significantly shorter than it was yesterday. There are bloody claw marks in his bad leg, too (although not too much blood, he’s cleaned it very neatly and they’re small holes.)
I am not fast enough to catch a three-legged squirrel. It would appear that something else isn’t quite fast enough either, but fast enough to come pretty close. I wonder if this is going to continue until his entire hind end has become truncated, or if something’ll finally get lucky and snag him.
Poor Gimpy. He can eat all of my camellia he wants.
UPDATE: Hold the phone! That’s not Gimpy!
Or if it is, Gimpy has an astonishing gift for instantaneous tail regeneration, as he’s currently hanging off the feeder stuffing his face, and his tail is the proper length. So obviously what has happened is that a second squirrel (who will henceforth be known as Stumpy) has run afoul of some beast in the exact same manner as Gimpy–it got him by the left hind quarter and yanked, dislocating the leg and clawing it up a bit, except that Stumpy also lost the majority of his tail.
I still don’t know if I am just living in some kind of ward for defective and hard luck squirrels, or if this would happen if one took the time to watch any small population of animals for a year, or what.
Well, I feel obscurely relieved. Good luck, Stumpy! If Gimpy can make it, so can you!
