Squirrel Talk.

I was standing next to one of the big ash trees which border the path at the end of the Harry Potter wood today, admiring the view across the fields to the river valley and on to the hills beyond. I heard a small, indeterminate noise to my right, and turned to see a squirrel clinging to the tree trunk, watching me. I said ‘hello, little friend,’ and the squirrel made a kind of squeaky bark back. And then it ran up the tree and disappeared from view.

Now, you may say that this is an unremarkable occurrence and therefore not worth mentioning. But is it? Apart from the fact that such an encounter has never happened to me before, I’m curious to know what the squeaky bark was all about. The squirrel must have had a reason for doing it, or else why waste the energy?

Did it mean ‘hello back’? Was it a call to the entirety of squirrels and meant ‘hey, there’s a big creature down here that makes a funny noise. Be on your guard.’ Could it have been a threat along the lines of ‘get out of our wood or we’ll throw things at you’? Or maybe it was merely a hiccup brought on by having consumed a surfeit of acorns.

I shall never know, of course, and that makes it today’s mystery.