Living in a heavily wooded area near a creek, we see all kinds of critters–foxes, snakes, wild turkeys, deer, skunks, opossums, raccoons, even groundhogs. Given that we live in a suburban neighborhood, this always surprises (and delights) me.
But I was a little spooked by what my son found over the weekend while he was raking leaves; with all due respect, I named him Rocky the Squirrel:
He was bright-eyed. He was even bushy-tailed. The only problem? He was dead. I couldn't help wondering what in THE world happened to him–he looked frozen and had no visible wounds.
In more than a few Southern counties, locals would've called him "dinner". Beats opossum road-kill any day of the week ;).
We hit a possum just last night, and I didn’t even think about scooping him up for dinner…what a wasted opportunity! 😉
My question is how is he managing to levitate like that? 😉
And after dinner, they would have tied fishing lures with his tail fur.
We used to find dead squirrel in our yard in FL all the time.Well, maybe not *all the time.* Over ten years we found at least five though. And one very tiny baby who we fed and kept in a box and named Toby. That was kinda cool…til I starved him to death. I’m not a mama squirrel and had a hard time switching him to solids. =(
Anyways, I always thought that they might have been scared to death by a cat. Or electrocuted from using power lines as crosswalks. Who knows? Maybe he was very old and just died?
Jeni, bless their hearts…they’ve gotta be blinder than bats!
Dawn, I had a GREAT picture of my son with it; he was wearing a school sweatshirt, though, and since I don’t have photoshop to blur it out…I had to go with one of solo Rocky :).
Phyllis, it reminded me of the Avada Kadavra curse from Harry Potter where you could zap someone and they’d die on the spot. Figures, someone with the name “Pensieve” for a blog would come up with that one, lol.
eeew, that’s just creepy…or maybe not…
I knew an animal control officer who kept a squirrel in the freezer at the shelter and would dress it up for holidays…hmmm, I guess that’s REALLY creepy
Awww…the poor thing!
Maybe he’s just “playing dead” because he craves attention. Did you check for a pulse?
Don’t you folks down South look at something like that and say, “yum, yum!”?? Up here we just call it roadkill.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Maybe he got into some kind of rat poison or something? Heh. When I was little that would have freaked me out for months, if not years. Now I think it’s kind of funny. More cynical with age?
a few things….
I think my neighbor would probably eat that squirrel for dinner.
Maybe you should stick him in a freezer bag for a night that you forgot to thaw something out.
I bet he had a long and nutty life.
old, diseased, poisoned… a lot of reasons.
In our neighborhood they get electrocuted… They jump onto the transformers KABOOOM.. and the whole neighborhood goes dark.
aw that’s too bad.
OH my…
Happy Thanksgiving!
sandy toes
ok taste just like chicken i know i have had it befor yes thay told me it was chicken so i would eat it but after i did thay told me what i had for dinner
I used to have a recipe for bbq squirrel. You want I should locate it?
hey, I have a great post (with photos)of opossum roadkill.
Young squirrel looked like a young one. Probably had some internal trauma and poop, expired. Must be cold – no insects got to it. It is a good specimen. The mammalogist in me would bag it and throw it in the freezer to mount later.
Happy ww. I have up pics of wild turkeys. Happy Thanksgiving.
Ewwww!
And you took a very cool shot! I thought he was jumping up and down!
Time to get out the “Road Kill Helper” and have a little dinner. heh heh…just kidding. That’s a little freaky. Maybe it was natural causes?
I’m guessing electrocution. Isn’t it funny how we rarely assume something in the wild died of natural causes? Did we all watch too much Wild Kingdom growing up?
No joke, you should call the county, he may have died from West Nile Virus and you want to know if that’s around anywhere. Interesting photo.
Check out my WW post at:
http://beingchronicallyillisapill.blogspot.com/2008/11/wordless-wednesday-flower-power.html
Happy WW and Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving – good thing he wasn’t a turkey.
LOL I hope you are joking about eating them!?!?
Happy Thanksgiving
Oh, I thought he looked so happy! So blissful! And then you said he was, well, dead. Sad.
😀
I think that’s what they make figgy pudding out of…and then again maybe NOT!
Happy Thanksgiving Robin!
Watch out for the turkeys I hear tell they’re Everywhere! Thick as squirrels in a Southern neighborhood. Yep, that’s what I hear.
Have a fantastic Thanksgiving!