Chipmunks Gone Bad
Oh yeah, he's cute, but read on...This is Bob. Last summer, he lost the end of his tail, to what I know not. Chet likes to chase him to a hideyhole under the garage; maybe there was a close call. Bob has been out and about from hibernation for about ten days now, defying winter, stuffing his cheek pouches with suet dough and sunflower seed, corn and millet. I suspect he has a multi-room condo somewhere under the garage, with a different entree in each room. As chipmunks go, Bob is a good one. He doesn't do too much digging in planters or nipping off seedlings. You get a bad chipmunk, you got trouble.
I like Bob because I can tell him from the others, and because he strikes decorative poses on the garden furniture. I said he was a good chipmunk, but I just remembered a moment last summer when a cardinal lay down to sunbathe under the feeder. Flopping over on his side, the cardinal spread one wing and threw his head back and closed his eyes, just letting the sun reach his dark gray skin. You could tell it felt really good. I was watching the cardinal, but I was also watching Bob, who was sitting on a stone wall under the studio window. Bob's tail stump wove back and forth like a cat's, and I knew he was up to no good. Sure enough, Bob launched himself off the stone wall and straight at the sunbathing bird. Cardinal reaction times being what they are, the redbird was up and out of his trance before Bob got there. But somehow, I don't think ol' Bob was fooling around. I did get a good laugh out of it, and another tidbit of insight about chipmunks.
Ironically, chipmunks are the whole reason I can't keep the captive-bred hatchling box turtles I raise in an outdoor enclosure. (They're being raised for eventual release on our preserve). There's really no way to exclude a chipmunk from anything, since they're so tiny and dig so well... They open the box turtles up and eat them like walnuts, I'm told, until the boxies get to 3/4 lb. and their shells are hard enough to resist chewing. Chipmunks are weird. There's a dichotomy there: vegan-gone-vampire. So Chet and I keep our eyes on ol' Bob.
posted by Julie Zickefoose @ 8:33 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
They are cute, though, aren't they? We had one chipmunk in our yard for a day last summer. He didn't stick around. We do have a family of Douglas squirrels that are small with orange chests. They remind us of the chipmunk. I had no idea a chipmunk would eat a turtle. I always thought they just munched away on greens, nuts and seeds. Shows you what I know!
Chipmunks and I have a love hate relationship. I love to watch my Boston's go ballistic over chasing them but hate it when they use the rain downspouts on our house as an escape route...needless to say many of our downspouts are now missing off the sides of our home and have been found in our neighbors corn field, along with HIS downspouts. Boston's are not noted for understanding property lines. They only understand that all chipmunks and downspouts are fair game!
I want to leave a comment asking about the tail. Are you sure it was cut off? Are there some chipmunks with tails like this naturally?
I recently bought a house in a neighborhood with lots of trees, shrubs, vines, etc... Much more than your typical suburban neighborhood. I've got rodents running all around my house that look like this, with the shortened tail. It may be that they're not chipmunks at all. But, they certainly resemble this one in the photo.
Dear Costanza,
I'm quite sure Bob's tail was shortened accidentally, because it ends not in a natural, tapered tip but in a v-notch, where the vertebrae were severed. Depending on the part of the country where you live, there may be species of chipmunks with shorter tails than the Eastern chipmunk's. There are a lot of species of chipmunks nationwide, especially west of the Rockies.
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