Squirrel politics

This film starts with a squirrel above me in a tree.

One squirrel in the garden has been coming, or has twice come, to within six inches of my face when I have been standing under the lilac. The squirrel seems curious and I wondered if this was the one. There is also a squirrel with a sore paw, who had eaten very close to me one time and had run up the trellis when another squirrel came. The other squirrel was wary of me.

Now, when the tree squirrel goes to the food in the next sequence of the film, you can see that she has a bad paw. She races into the hedge when the second squirrel appears. But she sits above and "huffs" at the second squirrel which you can just about hear. She also drops her nuts on him, which leads him to run away. She then gets more food and carries it into the tree to eat above my head.

When she realises there is yet another squirrel approaching, she turns to face the newcomer - who goes straight for the food. It is only when that squirrel has gone that she climbs down the tree to leave the garden by the back fence.

This is interesting. The wariness - but also the defiance - as she drops a nut on him.

I have often seen squirrels almost run into each other as they scamper about. It's like they often actively ignore each other. They don't meet each other's eyes. And they don't like to meet my eyes either., This one now seems to just about tolerate me actually looking at her.

Talking of dropping food: I was with Bobbit when a tit in the lilac above dropped some chippings of peanut. The robin immediately ate them. Fast food delivery.